Archive: April 2008

JG’s school is holding a contest to find The Cutest Pet Ever, so we’re entering Ted, of course. Not that we are stage parents or anything, ahem. It simply stands to reason that since Ted is the cutest pet ever, which I think is pretty self-evident, he should be in the contest to be recognized as such. In the off chance that he does not get that title, well, then I can only assume that the contest was rigged.

According to contest guidelines, we had to provide the following information for our pet:

• Favorite pastime: Chewing on things
• Interesting fact: Ted is named after the main character from How I Met Your Mother

The last task was to produce a picture to prove the cuteness, so we flipped through Ted’s photo album. We hemmed and hawed over levels of adorable, but we finally settled on one from the very first day we brought the puppy home. It was odd to recall that he was so tiny and stunned to be outside of his comfort zone. Ted was quiet and jittery, and he didn’t try to run at all. He just sat in our laps with his little heart racing.

Yesterday, I brought Ted out onto the deck to try and recreate the picture. He wouldn’t sit just so and cock his head at me in that curious way. I had to bribe him with a treat, so his nose is pointing skyward in all of my shots. I also had to bring him out on a leash because that timid puppy has long made way for a curious (and fast!) dog. The light is a lot brassier, and I didn’t quite get the cropping right, so it’s not a perfect recreation, but comparing the two photos side by side is still striking. Ted has come a long way in nine months, and so have I. Now, to win that contest!

Get your daily dog dose with Smalls, Kaya, Rufus, Ben, Gus, and Zapp!

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P.S. For anyone who saw Janet’s pictures from the Doxie Derby, am I the only one who is itching to see a “dogumentary” about dachshund racing? Ben brought the movie to my attention, and it cannot be ignored.

One of the errands JG and I ran during our common day off last Friday was stopping by the dentist. See, yours truly is in need of some orthodontia work.

When I was a teenager, I managed to avoid wearing braces and all of the pain that entails. I don’t have really straight teeth, but I always thought they were pretty good for not having had braces. At my most recent cleaning, however, my dentist had a completely different opinion.

Apparently, I am a victim of “downward drift,” and my teeth will continue their glacier-esque travels toward the front of my mouth as I get older. They have already rotated and encroached on one another, which is part of the reason that I have a hard time flossing. The other part of it is that I have an overactive gag reflex. Oh, and I hate to floss. The team of hygienists made molds of my teeth, and my path toward straighter teeth had begun.

On Friday, we finally paid the down payment and I received my first treatment. Don’t be fooled — despite my moaning and groaning, it’s not bad at all. I have been saved the adolescent trauma of wiring my jaw by virtue of clear alignment trays. Instead of a mouthful of metal, I have the unpleasant sensation that I can only imagine is akin to that of wearing a mouth guard, not that I have ever worn one of those. The trays put pressure on my teeth, but there hasn’t been any pain, thank goodness. I keep sucking at my teeth furiously because I feel like something is stuck to them, which might be because, well, something is.

When I eat, I have to dig my fingers into my mouth to pry out the trays and put them in my handy carrying case for the duration of the meal. It’s lovely. Then, before bed, I feel like a geezer when I brush each tray with toothpaste. As if I didn’t have to brush my own stupid teeth! Apparently, denture cleaner is an absolute no-no, according to the brochure, which recommended that I buy a $75 cleaning kit, despite the fine print that said that toothpaste was okay, too. Huh! I should buy myself something with all of that saved tray-cleaner money!

So far, five days in, the biggest impact to my life is that I have to condense my eating pattern into three distinct times (so as to wear the trays for 22 hours each day), and that has really put a wrench in my previous strategy of Snack Constantly on Healthy Things. What, I have to eat my leftovers, fruit, crackers, and applesauce at the same time? Geez. My “S” sounds have become rather lispy in the past few days, and I find that I’m covering up my mouth more when I smile or laugh. JG says that he doesn’t even notice, but when I arrived at the wedding rehearsal on my first day of wearing the trays, the first thing the bride said to me was, “Do you have something on your teeth?” Great.

The bright side of the matter is that, in seven months, I will have a lovely, straight smile, and a mere eleven months after that, it’ll be paid in full. Beauty doesn’t come cheap.

JG and I have been married for almost three years, so in our circle of church friends, it’s a common assumption that having kids is in the imminent future. Every so often, we field questions to that end, and we dance around the issue, usually citing Ted as all we can handle right now. I’m glad that we’re not hassled to the point of frustration, but it is a little off-putting when having kids is such a foregone conclusion, and if we’re not adhering to someone’s pre-conceived schedule, we’re automatically abnormal.

Even worse than the questions are those knowing nods, those sideways glances, those “we’ll see about that” sighs. “Just you wait,” they say, “once you turn thirty, you’ll want to hear little feet in your hallways and you won’t even care that they drive you crazy. You’ll see.” Okay, even if we assume that this is the case for every married couple out there, isn’t it kind of bad form to rub it in someone’s face prematurely with that fatherly, I-know-better wisdom? When that tone arises, it takes every ounce of self-restraint to shrug and reply, “Whatever you say,” and continue on my way.

The truth is that we really like our status as a married couple. I figure that we can never go back to this stage of relative footlooseness and fancy-freedom, so we’re going to stretch it out for as long as it makes sense. Even if we had kids and then ended up with an empty nest down the road, it wouldn’t be the same. It’s hard to explain that to a friend with a toddler on her hip and a bun in the oven who asks out of sheer curiosity because she so enjoys being a mom. But, really, we’re good. Thanks for asking.

At the wedding JG and I attended over the weekend, we were seated at a table with various other couples. The only couple we didn’t know, John and Kristy, were the bride’s “adopted parents” at college, and they struck up conversation right away. After learning our names, the next questions were, “How long have you been married?” and “Do you have any kids?”

JG and I went through our usual song and dance, and John and Kristy nodded along. They told us how they had four kids and a foster child at home, plus another baby who was visibly on the way.

Oh, boy, I thought. I do not want to spend this entire time talking about how we don’t have kids.

The other couples at our table jumped in to the conversation:

“That’s true, you can never go back to where you are now.”

“Yeah, but I really love being a mom.”

“Who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?”

“If I didn’t have my kids, I would have more money, more sleep, less worry, and more time.”

Thankfully, the conversation eventually shifted to John’s anecdotes about being a detective, and I did much less shrinking into my chair.

Later, after the meal, when people had dispersed, Kristy leaned in and said to us, “I think you should have kids, no matter what that lady said about money and stuff.”

We chuckled. Not this again, I thought.

“No, really,” she continued. “It’s just amazing how you have this little life before you, and the two of you have this privilege to bring it up. I mean, I can’t even believe that we have four of our own, and we’re able to have another. Really. It’s amazing. It’s a miracle.”

And suddenly, I realized that Kristy was completely heartfelt. I had rolled my eyes at those cloying predictions of wanting to hear feet in hallways, but this — this was the real deal. Kristy didn’t want us to have children because it was the next step in becoming normal; she wanted us to share in that privilege of parenting a child. She was fully aware of and grateful for the weight and the gravity of being a mother, and she wanted us to know that it wasn’t all about losing sleep or spending money. Her words were strangely compelling.

On our way home from the wedding, I brought up this conversation with JG, and I think my biggest take-away was how glad I was that John and Kristy were parents. They were such a stark contrast to our typical interactions with young parents, with their sage pronouncements for our future. John and Kristy simply showed us how much they love their kids and being their parents, and that was so refreshing.

Now, don’t get your skirt in a twist because I did not have a baby-conversion moment there. Just call it food for thought.

This weekend, I firmly cemented a few ideas that have been simmering in my brain.

Warm weather without humidity is the best thing ever.
On Friday, the weather gods blessed Kennett Square with 70-degree weather. At first, I looked askance at the forecast because even that level of heat can be too much for me. I loathe sweating, and my black hair speeds up the process of me wilting into a disheveled mess. Plus, I do not love wearing shorts, and April was far too early in my internal calendar to break those out. But as soon as I stepped outside— in my spring uniform of jeans, flip-flops, tank top, and cardigan — I breathed a sigh of relief. Oh, it was hot, yes, but there was not a drop of humidity in the air. Cue the angels singing! It was just warm enough to feel like spring, without any energy-sucking heaviness to take the fun out of it. JG and I spent the morning meandering through Longwood Gardens, taking advantage of our so-worth-it membership. It was lovely to waltz (not literally) past the ticket people, get our membership card scanned by the elderly volunteer, and then have the pleasure of quiet pathways, lovely flowers, and burgeoning ideas for our landscaping. No humidity and amazing views? Well!

I should not be a wedding planner.
When a former youth group girl, Diana, got engaged a year and a half ago, I reassured her that I would help out with the wedding in any way she needed me. Well, she took me up on it and asked me if I would be her day-of wedding coordinator, her “Franck,” as she put it. It was all very flattering, and I rolled up my spreadsheet sleeves to get my ducks in a row. Diana and I had monthly meetings so that I would be attuned to all the details, thus rendering me able to answer any questions from paranoid parents or quell bossy bridesmaids. I arrived at the rehearsal with no less than seven spreadsheets that listed everything from the florist’s cell phone number to my to-do list for Saturday morning, and Diana introduced me to the family and friends as “being in charge of you all.” Thankfully, the rehearsal went smoothly, and I felt relatively confident for Saturday to arrive.

That night, I tossed and turned in bed. Every so often, a new item popped into my head, and I turned on my reading light and grabbed the notebook on my nightstand to scribble down something like, “Bring fine-point permanent markers” or “Remind ushers that they need to dismiss people by row.” I probably got about four hours of sleep while JG slumbered peacefully next to me.

On Saturday, only a fraction of my anxiety came to fruition. The wedding went well, more or less (I hear it was beautiful, anyway), with the exception of three panicked moments:

• The unity candle had disappeared sometime between the rehearsal and morning of the wedding, and the sound guy managed to find some kind of replacement. At twenty minutes before the ceremony, I didn’t even care what it was, as long as it would light and stay that way. We still have not figured out what came of the original candle.
• A grandmother did not arrive until five minutes after the ceremony was supposed to start. Members of the bridal party and extended family created a running loop of “Is Grandma Ginny here yet?” as I stood there, helplessly, with her corsage in hand. When she finally arrived, she was crying from sheer mortification that her ride had been so ridiculously late, so I had to talk her down from the ledge as I shuffled her into place next to her escort.
• One of the groomsmen disappeared right before the reception, so his accompanying bridesmaid was left without an escort for the introduction of the bridal party. I have yet to get the full story on that one because I launched right into solution mode at the time.

While I am so glad that I was able to help Diana and take care of logistics for her, I am fully convinced that I could not handle this level of stress on a weekly basis. I ran around the site in flip-flops for a good hour that morning, learned how to pin corsages, and cued the processional before I could catch a breath. Once I got to my table at the reception, I was so disappointed to find that they had run out of mini-quiche! Bah! I will be happy to be a regular guest who will wear her dressy shoes, buy a slow cooker off of the registry, and eat her bacon-wrapped scallop, thank you very much.

I am hopeless at playing Guitar Hero.
Last week, JG ordered and received Guitar Hero for Wii, and he has been building his rock godliness with surprising dedication, all the while giving me not-so-subtle nudges to try it out for myself. I was not enthusiastic. See, I am awful at Dance Dance Revolution (or, “Stomp Stomp Revolution,” as I call it), and I am eternally bitter because I can actually dance in real life. Why doesn’t any of that transfer over to this Mario-themed game? Argh. I had this sinking feeling that my remedial guitar-playing skills would come to the same end with Guitar Hero.

Against my better judgment, I strapped on the guitar last night. We were having people over for the specific purpose of playing the game, and I thought my inaugural attempt would be less painful with a smaller audience. I worked through the basic guitar lessons, and I could already feel my body tensing and my scalp sweating. With much trepidation, I selected “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” on Easy, but I almost immediately started missing notes with my trembling fingers. I threw my hands up.

“That’s it! I’m not doing this.”

I took the guitar off with shaking hands and handed it to JG, who had a disappointed look on his face. He just wanted me to have fun, but he could tell how excruciating the experience was for me. Oh, well. Every rock star needs a fan, so I figure that I can fill that position … while I work on crosswords.