Holiday Wrap Up, Part III.

Subtitle: "All the Other Stuff that Happened and Cost Us Money"

So Michaela got a stomach bug two days or so before Christmas and puked on the hardwood floor as the words My stomach kind of hurts and I think I may thr... came out of her mouth. She slept alot, laid low and was fine by Christmas. We did the whole Christmas thing, which was fun, and then the vacation began.

On the Monday of vacation, Michaela got her palate expander cemented in at the orthodontist. She (and I, to be truthful) were a little anxious about the whole thing, and we stocked up beforehand on Motrin, Tylenol, ice cream, yogurt and pudding. She did great: she was a real trooper, tolerated the whole "installation" well, and I was really proud of her.

The only problem was that when the tech was cementing in the bottom expander, the molar that is used to anchor the expander fell apart. It is a deeply ridged molar that she's had three fillings in, and the dentist warned us at the last visit that we were sort of living on borrowed time with this tooth. We chose to deal with the whole orthodontist thing first and then take care of the tooth, which may need a crown to fix, when the time came. And that time was Monday.
We made a semi-urgent appointment at the pediatric dentist that our family dentist recommended for Thursday morning. Fun!!

Little did I know that at almost the same time, Dan was driving in to work and hit an unidentified object in the road which promptly blew out his tire. He changed the tire himself and then brought it to the dealer to get a new tire. On the way home from picking up the car, he felt the car shimmying and shaking and had to bring it back the next day to get an alignment and a double check of the rim. Turns out the rim was damaged and has to be replaced. Yikes.
We had to call in a claim for the tire/alignment/ rim replacement since the estimate for it all was about $950. SUPER Fun!!

On Wednesday morning we went to a showroom to look at the cost of getting new windows and siding and front door for our house. The windows and door are original aluminum- sexy!-from when the house was built in 1967, back in the Dark Ages. The siding is newer, but fading and tired and blue. The windows are about what we thought but we were stunned at the estimate for the siding: $15,000.00. FIFTEEN GRAND!! I said the guy, "What the heck is the siding made of? GOLD??" And suddenly our siding looks much less tired and faded.

Then Thursday came and we saw the pediatric dentist. (At 8:30am. Do you know how early one has to get up to get herself and three kids ready, fed and dressed to leave the house at 8am? Pretty darn early. That is why I am so grateful to be a stay at home mom.) The dentist was lovely, explained our options- either crowning the tooth, which she was hesitant to do since so little of the tooth remained or just extracting it- and told us she would talk to the orthodontist to coordinate treatment. As we left , they gave us a "worst-case scenario" of what the crown would cost. I am not lying when I say I almost wept with relief when I saw the estimate for getting the crown was only about $150.

Nothing fell apart over the weekend, but Jenna got sick yesterday with a cold and a wicked cough that actually made her puke. Twice. On the kitchen floor. This morning she woke up with a fever of 101 so off to the pediatrician we went. Thankfully, it is just a virus, so no extra medicine was needed, just Tylenol and Motrin (which we have plenty of from Michaela- serendipity!) and lots of rest, fluids and love.

So Happy New Year. I am eager for life to slow down a tad and get boring again. And a wee bit less expensive. Because after paying the hospital for Alec, the doctors for Alec and me and Jenna, the orthodontist, the Christmas bills, the mechanic, and the dentist, I'm just about tapped out.

Epilogue: The pediatric dentist just called and had good news: the tooth can be extracted instead of crowned. Hooray for small miracles. I sense a shift in the tide...