Roots

Let me just preface this story with a fact:  I didn't have a cavity until I was seventeen years old.  I have good teeth!  But pregnancy does things to your body, and I found myself looking at the prospect of two root canals.  This is at the same time as Freestone's deal with the faulty enamel.  Needless to say, even with dental insurance, we're searching under couch cushions for grocery money this month.  Some of us can't chew anyway, so we're saving money there...

I was dreading my first root canal appointment like I hadn't dreaded anything since junior high gym class.  I had heard people joke about how a root canal seemed like a day at the spa when you're a mom, how it's a relaxing break.  I disagreed.  I would much rather be doling out chores than having some pompous dental school grad drilling through my teeth while I stared at a poster on the ceiling of a cat clinging to a branch.  "Just hang in there!"

I was still on the phone making arrangements for my three-hour absence from home when I walked into the dentist's office and sat down to wait.  When I got off the phone I looked around and it did not look familiar.  I said to the receptionists, "Are all of you new since last week?"  I was in the wrong dental office!  Mine was around the corner.  Panic? Avoidance?  Once I got to the right place and made it through four shots - I kept telling him I wasn't numb yet - I started to relax.  I had heard a story on meditation in the car on the way, so I tried to incorporate my five minutes of learning about meditation into my situation.  "I can go to a happy place!  My body is here, but I'm at Barnes and Noble!  Oh, but wait, I can't afford to buy a book because of all this dental work.  OK, happy place!  Happy place!  Picturing a gift card.  It's for a hundred dollars..."  Then I realized that I was already IN a happy place.  I would have smiled if I could.  Instead I laid back and took a nap.   The dentist was solely responsible for the work.  I had no responsibility and my kids had no access to me.  The stories were true!  It WAS like the spa!

I looked forward to the second appointment and got comfortable right away.  Then things took a turn for the worse.  The dentist couldn't finish the job and had to send me to a specialist, a guy in Ogden that works late.  Third appointment:  I went in at 8:00 on Friday night.  Scott was home with the kids, so it was truly like a night out.  I was lying in the chair in my happy place and the dentist started talking about King David and Bathsheba and temptation.  I thought things were going to get juicy between him and the assistant, but they were only discussing next week's Sunday School lesson.  Then the specialist tells me he can't complete the work.  My tooth is too hard and I'll have to come back.  He's talking about rescheduling and he says, "Do you work?"  I want to say something that conveys what an offensive question that is, like, "What do you mean?  Work what?"  But my mouth is propped open so I give a resigned  "No."   He says, "Good, so you could come in anytime there's a cancellation."

I'm just glad he was the one with all the sharp tools at that point, not me.  I wanted to explain how next week, I have my own six kids plus a nephew to take care of, I have two violin camps to run each day, a daughter in a play that requires parent "volunteer" work, a nursing baby, children in music lessons all over the Wasatch Front and a kid that turns on the hose every time I turn my back.  But I say, "Uh-huh."  If I did "work," THEN I could come in any time there's a cancellation because to leave my job for two hours, I wouldn't have to find rides and childcare for seven kids and probably nothing would flood while I was gone.  I wouldn't be getting text messages from my teen midway through the root canal like "Where R U?  Can't find food.  Can I go 2 Amanda's?"  (Uh, no.  You're babysitting.  How are you forgetting this?  And check the hose!)  And unlike the dentist, I don't have someone to answer phones, as well as an assistant handing me things I need throughout the day.  (Diaper change?  "OK, wipe...apply the ointment...give me a number two diaper...and snap everything up, then go ahead and toss the salad for lunch.)  President Obama would have an easier time taking two hours for a root canal than any mom during the summer months.  I guess I could go to the spa, but  I like to be where the action is.

Gotta run...I hear water.