Rock Salt

C and M both have loose teeth.  Both have adult teeth coming in above or behind the baby tooth.  Their old dentist extracted the baby teeth.  Their new dentist is letting the teeth come out naturally.  C and I went to the CLT Hornet's basketball game tonight.  C said he couldn't chew his burger because it was pushing his tooth back.  I told him that meant his tooth was ready to come out and that Mommy or I could pull it out for him.  NO WAY!  So he moved on to fries and a soft pretzel which were easier to chew than the burger.  About 15 minutes later, he blurts out:  "Where's my tooth?  Do you have it?"  Why would I have your tooth?  "It must have fell out and I don't know where it is!" Panicked searching of his cloths and seat.  And then--he remembers.  He reaches down into the food tray next to the pretzel and picks up a tooth.  "I was chewing the pretzel and felt something hard.  I thought it was a piece of salt so I put it in the tray."  Some chunk of rock salt!  Losing his tooth apparently made him queasy as he didn't feel well the rest of the night and we headed for home before the end of the third quarter.

E's birthday is tomorrow and she's very excited about it.  She's having her party at the Painted Piggy Spa.  The girls (don't let out the secret) get their Piggies painted.  She's also excited about going to walk around the Speedway tomorrow night to see the Xmas lights.  I'm guessing her sister and brother will be less excited after walking the first 100 yards feet.

3 weeks ago were parent/teacher conferences.  M's homeroom teacher said she was doing great in her studies and was well behaved in class. M's Spanish teacher told me that I needed to talk to M because she was refusing to do the tests, repeating to the teacher after each question, "I can't understand what you are saying."  I told the teacher I would talk to her but doubted it would do much good because M decides what she wants to do and when she wants to do it.  The teacher gave me a dirty look to express her displeasure at my lack of cooperation.  Then M's homeroom teacher chimed in to admit that she had given up on trying to get M to move on the next activity at the same time as everyone else.  M just joins them when she is ready to (which is ok with the teacher because she does it quietly and doesn't disturb the others.)  At some point, she will have teachers who are not so accommodating.  When we told M that we could put her in a regular 1st grade class if she didn't like Spanish, but doing so would also require her to leave Ms. Beck's class (who she loves), we were denounced as mean and attempting to commit heresy.  So she stays for now.

Also just before Halloween, in fact, precisely one week before, I got a big pumpkin.  It was a beautiful Saturday morning and the kids wanted to carve it immediately.  Why not?  They got out a pattern.  I had refused to do those patterns in previous years because they looked really intricate.  Well, why not?  M and E helped get the goop out of the inside and taped the pattern on the outside.  Then I used the little carving elements that came with the kit and it actually came out very well.  The moon with the Grim Reaper's silhouette.  I put it in the garage to keep it in the cool and dark for the week.  Nice try.  By Tues, there was fuzzy mold around the top opening of the pumpkin; by Wed, there was about a half inch of mold around every opening and all around the inside; by Thurs, the pumpkin had collapsed.  I had to use a shovel to scoop it up and take it to the trash bin.  Lesson learned for next year--it's too warm in Oct for a carved pumpkin to last a week.  Carve it at the last minute.  This year's costumes:  C was a hammerhead creature from Pirates of the Caribbean, M was Evie (with Mel's wig!) from Disney's Descendents, and E was Jessie from Toy Story but also carried Toto in Dorothy's basket.  It was a create your own pop-culture mash costume for us this Halloween.  Enough candy to last until the next pumpkin carving!