Root Canal

A long time ago I had a filling break in one of my rear molars. My dentist fixed it and warned me I would eventually need a root canal. About a month ago, the same day I took my actuarial exam, I had some pretty intense pain in that same tooth. By the time I got to the dentist a few days later, the pain had subsided to just a dull throb, but she assured me I now needed that root canal or it would return. So today I got it.

It wasn't as bad as they're made out to be. The shots, as with any dental work, were the worst part. Worse than usual, actually. Turns out for a root canal they have to get right on the nerve. That was, like, electric flames shooting through my jaw. Yeow. But it only lasted a few seconds and after that I didn't feel anything. I mean, there were the vibrations while having the nerve chamber drilled out. It was kinda' disconcerting at the end to watch and smell a smoking heating element put in my mouth. No pain though. None at all.

All the numbness just drained out in the last fifteen minutes and it still feels fine. I'm glad to have that done. Just need to get it capped now.

Learning to Spell

Tabby is learning to spell. I'm pretty proud of her. I don't really remember at what age the rest of the kids started spelling, but this time I'm saying almost four means my little girl is pretty smart.

She's been learning letters for a while. Becky got her an alphabet puzzle and Tabby recognizes the letters in the context of the puzzle pretty well and in other contexts most of the time. She recognizes the letters that start our names all the time and knows what sounds they make. Now she is figuring out how to put the letters' sounds together to make words. Thanks to Sam, the first word she has put together is "poop".

"But Dad, she asked me how to spell it!"

/sigh

Tabby doesn't quite have the fine motor skills to write the letters, but she can find them on the keyboard. And she loves to. Over and over. So if you happen to be in the World of Warcraft and see a cute little elf prancing through the woods on her magical sparkly pony saying "poop, poop, poop" . . . that's my girl.

Easter Stories

Tabby gets Easter this year in ways she hasn't in past years. It's fun. We were talking about the Easter Bunny the other day and now she hops around immitating him bringing baskets of candy to our house. The anticipation is building so well.

"I'm going to wake up on Sunday and say, 'Hm, where's my basket? I better go find it!' And it will be full of candy!!!"

So Becky had bought some Easter candy, right? She kind of "hid" it just behind our bed on the floor. Of course, the next day I woke up to Tabby saying, "Daddy! Look what I found!" I cracked my eyes open and she was standing there with a box of blue peeps. "Can I have these?"

"Well, they're Mom's, Tabby. You better ask her."

"We can share." Then looking down longingly, "I love these. I hope the Easter Bunny brings some in my basket."

One more Easter story. Tabby and I were playing with her stuffed animals, a couple of puppies. We were running all over the living room barking at each other.

"Whew, I'm getting hungry," my puppy said, "I'm going to go get some dog food."

"I'm hungry too," Tabby's said, "I'm going to go chase a rabbit and eat it." (Yay nature shows).

"Oh no! What if you eat the Easter Bunny!?"

"No, Dad, I'm going to eat a real bunny."

Then she stopped. For a second you could see the wheels churning as the implications of what she had said hit her. Is the Easter Bunny real? He's bringing me candy. How can I eat a real bunny if I'm pretending? She literally shook it off and looked at me sincerely, "Dad, I'm not going to eat the Easter Bunny." As if that was the important part. Which, of course, it is.

Idealism

I had a great conversation with Sam in the car on the way to his friend's house the other day. Paraphrasing:

Sam: Dad, does the government have a fund to help in disasters like Japan's earthquake?

Me: Sure, Sam. There's an agency called FEMA that gets tax funding for exactly that kind of thing here in the USA. If we want to help other countries, we often send in military resources like ships and manpower to help with rescue and cleanup. Or Congress can authorize 'special appropriations' to send money. Someone just writes up the proposal and they vote on it.

Sam: If I were in charge, like the President or something, I'd just have everyone chip in one dollar every month. That would be, like what? $300 million per month? For a fund that would help so much. And it's hardly any cost. Just one dollar per person.

Me: Well you know, $1 dollar a month for our family would be an extra $72 a year in taxes.

Sam: Yeaahhhh . . . but if you spread it out to just a dollar a month, no one would mind paying it. That's like nothing.

Me: I'd support you, Sam. I think it's a great idea. I think there's a lot of people you'd have to work real hard to convince.

Sam: No. They'd support it. If they knew it was for such a good cause.

I had to bite my tongue to keep from going on a diatribe about the tea party being the latest incarnation of that selfish ilk that would reduce the size of government until you can drown it in a bathtub. Sam was just so sincere about the ability of government to help. I think that's great.

The next day I read this in Newsweek. And I'm kinda' torn. I think reading it would provide Sam a fuller context of political challenges, which is a good thing for him to see. However, I worry that it might push his wonderful, youthful idealism towards early cynicism about human nature and democracy.