It's very important to me that my children have great oral hygiene. Because I am the type of person to fixate on small problems, I make sure that in regards to their teeth, I have nothing to look for.
To date, all but two of my children have had braces. Ziggy is getting an appointment soon, I'm calling today. But this post is regarding the boy, above the boy. That teenager. Let's call him Cee-lo.
Cee-lo received braces before I did. He made them seem like nothing. No pain, no problems. He ain't right. The day after he received them, he was eating pizza, peanuts, trail mix, pretzels all the things that are on the Do Not Eat list. When I received my braces, I went on a liquid diet for a month and have recently moved to puddings. My damn teeth still hurt. (Sometimes I look at food and cry. Not worth the pain of chewing it. So I just hold it.)
Cee-lo and I go to the orthodontist yesterday. All the other crooked teeth children were going in and coming out quickly. Not the boy. Eventually he came and got me. I go to the hygenist and she looks strained. She said, "Well, he had another broken bracket. Generally we need to schedule more time for these appointments. If a child comes back with a broken bracket and we don't know, we send them back out and have them make another appointment. In the future, make sure you do that."
So, I look at her. I want to say, "Who the f*#k, are you talking too? B!tch you don't know me!" But I don't. What I do say is, "Did you tell Cee-lo to call you and make that appointment if he gets another broken bracket?" She looks at me and says, "Well, no. Generally we tell the parents." I said to her, " He didn't tell me he had a broken bracket. He is 16 yrs old. He knows what's going on in his damn mouth. You see this?' And I show her my row of razor sharp braces. "I only have time to focus on these teeth here, and those teeth over there." I point to Ziggy, who raises his hand."If you think I have the time, or the desire, to check this grown man's teeth every week, then you better make sure that every appointment he has is a bracket fixing appointment. Because unless he tells me, I ain't checking. So, make sure YOU do THAT!"
Cee-lo places his hand, gently on the shoulder with the torn rotator cuff, and pats it. That's his quiet sign to me, that I am getting loud and drawing a crowd.
I whip around to him, flames shooting from my eyes. He just looks at me, one eye brow lifted, waiting. Knocked the wind right out of me. I try not to go off on my kids, in public. God provided me a whole world of people to let have it. I save it for them. You never know where He will provide me with a victim. I simply said, "Let's go to McDonald's before you go to school. You hungry?" He nods yes, we scoop up Ziggy and we go to Fat world, aka, McDonald's.
I always say, the Lord provided these two boys for me to teach me the value of patience and humility. Now, I believe there is another reason. He knows I wouldn't do well in jail. Looking at the faces of my children, reminds me to take a deep breath, and calm down. (Although if I went to jail, I would smoke cigarettes and make wine out of grapes and fruit. Take naps. Get my education and find Jesus. Cause that seems to be the place most people seem to find Him. It doesn't sound that bad.)
But I can only do so much Lord, if He, in his Infinite wisdom, could teach people to stop saying dumb ass stuff to me, it would save us all some grief.
I mean, that bus driver is still ....I'll tell ya'll later. It would just get me worked up.
