What's wrong with this picture?

Or, to be more precise, what is MISSING from this picture?

I took the older kids to the dentist last week. Dr B said that they both had cavities. M's was on a baby tooth that is going to fall out soon, so he didn't feel that it was worthwhile to fill it. I'm kind of glad he got that cavity- M's been so, so good about brushing and flossing since this appointment. I was kind of sad about K's cavity because it was on a permanent tooth, which would mean her first permanent cavity. I was confused though, because it was on the top of the tooth, and it had a sealant. I had no idea how she managed to get a cavity on a sealed tooth.

I asked Dr. B how this was possible, and he admitted it was a really unusual cavity, it was on a peak (?) of the tooth instead of in the deep cracks. He showed me the tooth, and I immediately knew what had happened. Back in 4th grade, a 6th grade boy punched K in the mouth. In doing so, he actually BROKE the tip off of that molar. I'd taken her to the dentist, and he tried to build it back up, but the addition had fallen off, and decay had gotten in there. I'm angry all over again about that kid punching her. He wasn't even suspended for it, even though I ranted and raved to the principal.

The other issue I brought up on Tuesday was the fact that K hadn't lost her lateral incisors yet. Those are the teeth between the front teeth and the canines. K was getting concerned because they weren't even loose, and M had lost his months ago, and had the new teeth growing in. I asked Dr. B to double check things were ok with them.

He comes back a minute later, looking concerned. His records had indicated that those teeth WERE the permanent teeth. Uh oh. We did a panoramic picture, which I have posted above. As you can see, those lateral incisors are TOTALLY missing from her mouth. Because they're not there, all of the teeth behind where they ought to be are shifted. I am not an orthodontist, but even I can tell that her braces cost just went waaaay up. Plus, we'll have to invest in getting false teeth implanted for her. Yay.

All I can say is that I am sick and tired of runaway/missing lateral incisors.

Oh, and if you know a great orthodontist in my area, I'd love to hear about him/her.

My Major Award

I am so excited to be a winner of a MAJOR AWARD. It's not Italian, because it doesn't have "fra-gee-lay" on the box. Everyone knows the best awards are Italian. But, Japanese awards are a close second.

My major award is.....


GINSU KNIVES!!!! Yay!!! I love knives almost as much as I love fire, so I am very excited.

How did I win this major award, you may ask.

Well.

A local furniture store has decided to have a blog. It really is an amusing blog. J had signed up to be a follower, and they had an entry last week about the super bowl. They were asking for favorite super bowl recipes. They said the first 25 recipes entered would win these ginsu knives. J forwarded the link to me, so I gave Andie (the blog author) my recipe for potato skins. Amazingly enough, I was one of the winners!

I went and picked up my knives tonight, and I am embarrassingly excited over it. Amazon has them listed for $45, so they're not the cheapest things out there. I was playing with them tonight, and I think I'll be really happy with them.

Stuffed Peppers

This is one of those food experiments that I thought would look very pretty, but figured that only J and K would actually eat it. So, I invited my parents up for dinner so it would be enjoyed by a couple more people. My dad couldn't make it, but my mom was game, and brought him leftovers.

I used the recipe at allrecipes.com, but made a couple changes due to what I had on hand. Here's the original recipe. I don't feel like the fat content on that is accurate because it has 18 grams of fat, but my olive oil would only have 7 grams per serving, and my ground turkey was 4 grams per serving. I think that recipe assumed a fattier ground turkey.

I used red peppers because that is what I had. I didn't bother with yellow peppers.

Stuffed Peppers with Turkey and Vegetables

Ingredients

• 4 red bell peppers, tops removed, seeded
• tops from bell peppers, chopped
  
• 1 pound ground turkey
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1 zucchini, chopped
• 1 cup fresh spinach
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• Italian seasoning to taste
• garlic powder to taste
• salt and pepper to taste
• mozzarella cheese
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a skillet over medium heat, cook the turkey until evenly brown, seasoning with garlic, salt, pepper, and italian seasoning. Set aside. Heat oil in the skillet, and cook onion, mushrooms, zucchini, red bell pepper, and spinach until tender. Return turkey to the skillet. Mix in the tomatoes and tomato paste, and season w ith Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Stuff the peppers with the skillet mixture. Top each pepper with a little mozzarella cheese.
3. Place leftover filling in a casserole dish and top with mozzarella.
   
4. Place peppers in the oven, and cook 15 minutes or until the cheese has melted. The casserole leftovers may need a little more time to cook.

So, shockingly enough, all four of my kids wolfed it down. The youn ger thr ee didn't get a pepper because they told me they didn't like pepper, but I gave them filling from the casserole dish and they ate every bite!

Here is the filling while cooking:

And here's the peppers:

I know, my cookie sheet is a mess. I attempted to stuff a couple peppers without picking them up. That was a mistake.

The Post Office is out to get me

For some reason, my local post office occasionally returns mail addressed to me as "no such address". It usually targets particular individuals, most usually, my dentist. He sends me occasional appointment reminder postcards, remember to schedule your checkup cards, birthday cards, and a bill or two. I never get them though. They are always returned to sender. This has been irritating.

Around Christmastime, my friend Tsubasa sent us a Christmas package, as she always does on Christmas and our birthdays. This year, the post office returned it. I was pretty furious, as postage from Japan (or to, for that matter) is pretty expensive. It seems unfair for her to have it rejected even though she addressed it properly.

With the dentist office though, while irritating, it's been a little funny to me. Imagine my delight when I actually had a piece of mail from my dentist ACTUALLY arrive at my house. I laughed out loud when I saw how Sharon, the office manager, addressed it:I guess if I instruct people to write "This is the right address" under my address, the post office will deliver it. Good to know.

Bountiful Baskets and funny text

Last summer, K had really hoped that I would make pickles for her. I planted several cucumber plants, but they didn't produce as much as hoped, and what they did make were bitter. So, no pickles this year.

This week, a Bountiful Basket location was added at the last minute, and one of the add ons was a 38 lb box of pickling cucumbers for $17. Awesome! I knew that would be way too many for me alone, so I asked my sister in law if she wanted to split it. She agreed under the condition I teach her how to make them into pickles. They also had what sounded like an awesome mexican pack, so I grabbed that as well.

It was scheduled for pickup this morning, but due to weather, had to be pushed back a couple hours. J picked it up for me, since I had plans to go to lunch with my mom, grandma and sister. A few minutes after he picked up my basket, I got the following text:

"Seriously. A case of cucumbers?"

I had to totally crack up when I read it. When he'd gone to pick up the basket, they saw my name and said, "Oh, you're the ONE with the cucumbers, huh?" He replied, "No, it wasn't me. That was my wife." I suspect there was some eye rolling here on his part. We'll see who is rolling their eyes when they're enjoying pickles. So out of 100 people who ordered a basket, I was the only one to buy the cucumbers. I have to admit I'm a little surprised. I saw the box when I got home tonight. Holy cow. That is a LOT of cucumbers. And, it came in the coolest, most rustic box ever.
Here is the regular basket contents:

That is really an awesome haul. I'm pretty excited about it. The mexican pack is going to stretch my cooking a bit- I've never used tomatillos before, so it'll be interesting to work with. This is going to sound very dorky, but I loved the colors of the mexican pack. The different shades of green with the white and tan of the garlic and onion looked very pretty, I think.

When does comforting segue into coddling?

I can't decide how long I should comfort and baby S. She is definitely feeling better today though I'm sure she's not up to herself just yet.

She refuses to shut her mouth, or move it all to speak. She admits it's because she's afraid. So, she is almost totally incomprehensible when she speaks.

She refuses to eat/drink anything in any real quantities that I give her. Last night, J made her a smoothie while I was taking the older two kids to girl scouts/basketball. She drank 4-5 cups of it. Crazy! So, apparently, he'll have to do all feeding because he's much better at it than me.

She doesn't want to see anyone or go anywhere sometimes, but other times wants to see cousins. I can appreciate her reluctance. Unfortunately, I have had something scheduled for a while this morning. I'm taking her to a beloved babysitter. She says she doesn't want to go, but I think she'll be ok with it once she gets there.

Yesterday, we went to see some cousins. Bless their hearts, the older two had missing teeth, and the three of them compared missing teeth, and S acted totally fine with showing off her war wounds and seeing their missing teeth. She did NOT want to leave when I told her it was time.

My BIL came in the middle of that, and she hid because she didn't want him to see her that way.

So she's very back and forth on who sees her, what her mood is, and what she'll do.

I'm trying very hard to be patient with her because I know it's a devastating event for her. I worry that if I coddle her too much that it'll make things more difficult in the long run. Finding a good balance is difficult for me.

updates on minutae

Since I am stuck in the house, and now I've learned that my sister checks my blog twenty times a day, here's what's happened in the last hour.

I gave up the idea of potty training Z just yet. Yesterday we happened to walk past the diapers, and yelled out "diapers!! Diapers for Z!!!" with such joy that I know he doesn't want to give them up.

When we were at the store, S wanted to buy Cheetos twisted puffs, so we did. I knew she wouldn't be able to eat them for a while, so I figured we'd keep them sealed til she was ready. Well, she came in to "talk" to me. After much wild guessing, I learned that she wanted me to eat cheetos for her, and she fed some to me. Awwwww!

Then, we made some jello jigglers. They're chilling in the fridge for now, but I'll let her cut them into fun shapes when it's set.

She came in, and after more wild guessing (I am getting seriously good at this!) I discovered she wanted a smoothie. I made one with chocolate milk, ice cream and bananas. She is eating it now, so I'm beyond thrilled to get something into her.

I've sat here contemplating my situation. For us, we've had a bad string of luck. But really, as awful as it seems to me, I know it's not that bad. I haven't had to watch my child go off to a scary surgery. I haven't had to bury a child or husband. I haven't had to deal with a chronic, long term illness. We really have led a charmed life. I do feel grateful and lucky for all I have.

This morning I did the usual carpool run. The boy I drive to school made a hover craft for his science project. It was was a large piece of plywood (apprx. 4'x3') with a blower attached. I was able to drive it, his 3'x3' science board, extension cord, chair, and the kids to school (boy, I love driving a bus, it's so handy sometimes!). Helped E get get his stuff set up, and then went to get K's bass violin to take home for the weekend.