Monday was truly a non-Monday, Monday, the kind of day sprinkled with yummy gumdrops of goodness in all shapes and colors. The good graciousness began when I took Otto to the dentist to check up on a loose, chipped front tooth that could easily have doubled as a broken, ball peen hammer. We were there to see if the tooth would in fact, fall out or have to be pulled.
After surviving a few months of tense stand-offs with jelly beans, whole apples and day-old French bread, the dentist assured me that the battle between the side of the bathtub and his left central incisor went to The Cheeky Chicklet That Could and that the tooth would survive. That meant that not only would Otto be symmetrical in all holiday photos and star sightings, I would not be forced to gaze longingly at his raw gum meat for the next five years until the big boy chompers moved in.
Upon hearing the extraordinary news my heart crawled back into my chest and took a long, needed lie down as I proceeded to softly whisper a thank you to everything and everyone who had ever been associated with teeth. I toasted sharks and vampires and piranhas and Flavor Flav, going so far as a shout-out to the inventors of headgear and mint-flavored Polident Dentu-Cream. Ultimately, I had no idea who was responsible for making sure Otto’s funky fang stayed in place. But it didn’t really matter to me as long as I didn’t have to carpool with a child who looked like that dude from Deliverance who played the banjo on the porch and wanted the first slice of Burt Reynolds buttery birthday cake all to himself.
So, as I sat there pumping my fists and woo-hooing by myself, I began to notice that Otto’s behavior was as cool as a Fudgscicle at a fat farm. He sat in the dentist chair with his mouth open and a serene expression on his mug for over thirty minutes. That’s half of one hour, people, eighteen hundred seconds of precious toddler time allowing a perfect stranger to insert cold, metal tools into his tiny, moody mouth. No fussy, no fighting, no crying, no wiggling, no nothing. No way!
As I stared with total admiration and shock, I couldn’t believe that the love of my loins was as contented and calm in an electric-powered dentist chair as his mother has always been. I truly love the dentist like a leper loves his limbs but I never thought that my weird, borderline fetish would transfer itself over so completely to my crazy, tooth-cracking monkey. But sure enough, it did in spades and as I sat cross-legged on a tooth-shaped stool fit for a leprechaun, I oozed with unfettered pride and silently wished Otto a cavity-free life littered with cloud-white bicuspids and fanatical flossing.
If that weren’t enough of the good-golleys, I went home and discovered that I had just been nominated for The Top 50 Mom Blogs at Babble.com. Yes, if you think any of this is funny and you want to vote for me (beg, beg) vote HERE. And yes, my last post was a call to arms and a scream to scratch and I am about as subtle as a train in a trashcan and I apologize for the redundancy. But people, all these wonderful cats and kittens heard my yelps and offered helps. People were reading and voting and supporting and commenting and Facebooking and techno-babbling and I felt so humbled and thankful for all the love.
That night and the next day and the next day, as people voiced their opinions in all forms, I felt wholly supported by friends and strangers alike and greatly honored to keep company with my fellow nominees, a band of bloggy bad-asses who take no prisoners and eat no shit. I started reading and following and oohing and ahhing at what a great group of gals this modern, modem-loving sewing circle truly was. The more I read the more I experienced a great gaggle who poured their passion and poise into a writing forum that allows anyone, anywhere, to buck it, bring it, punch it and peddle it using nothing more than a keypad and a click.
When a regular day turns into a really good day that turns into a really great day it’s usually a Friday or a Saturday that involves hours of peaceful playtime, a solid restaurant reservation and a sitter who does dishes. But this past Monday was a great Monday all Monday with my kid by my side and the world as my window.
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