slow teeth (a riley story)

dominic arrived early and quickly. impatient, that one.

andrew arrived with a roar and let the entire world know he was here. determined, that one.

makenna arrived with a fever and a whole slew of unnecessary tests. dramatic, that one.

but riley?

riley arrived upside down through the emergency exit. unique, that one.

this baby is closing in on 20 months. it's an exciting time in our family because as our last baby gets through all these final milestones, we're saddened of course, but mostly p and i are just like...

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

we've been in the baby having, baby changing, baby feeding, baby non-sleeping business for five years now (yep, that's how old andrew is, friends) and we're tired. tiiiiiiiiiiired.

safe to say i'm excited as we check off each milestone with our babiest of babies. yay! no more umbilical cord. EVER. yay! no more meconium. EVER. yay! no more formula. EVER. yay! no more pacifiers. EVER. yay! no more sleeping in our room an inch and a half from my face. EVER.

her older siblings were in a rush when we weren't. dominic had his own entertainment center and nightime ritual by the time he was a year and a half. andrew was walking at 10 months, makenna at 9 months. Both were ordering online papa john's pizza by their second birthday.

but roo?

roo waits. she was almost 14 months before she figured this whole walking thing was worth a shot.

and her teeth? oh, dear god, her teeth. she's consistently three to four months behind the pediatrician's timetable for teeth sprouting and i've already tossed that stupid brochure in the trash and lit it on fire. LIES!

with each tooth that doesn't arrive on that lying calendar, my selfish mind calculates just how many more months we are to a full head of teeth and a restful night.

right now we're on one tooth in on the terrible canines. the three holdouts make an appearance once in a while like a little tiny white dot on her ravaged gum and then disappear. giving us one night of rest before four nights go all to hell with her aching mouth.

at this rate, she's going to be 25 by the time her  molars start coming in and i'm sure that when i hit 49, i might get to sleep in peace the whole night through.

so, while we may be ready for our babiest of babies to skate through this baby age into preschool age, Riley sure isn't.




this is part of "forty stories." a fun little lent challenge where i show up and write a story (of any nature, i guess) on internet paper. 

ashes, dust...and clinique

I had a half-psychotic twitch monster on my lap at church this afternoon. I was doing everything I could to pay attention to the priest's Ash Wednesday sermon as he was floating concepts like repentance and sacrifice at us like godly little birdies flitting out to lucky revelers.

I'm sure other parishioners were busy making self-sacrificial plans for the next 40 days like good Episcopalians.

My concentration had been shot the moment I shlepped my three youngest through the doors by the backs of their coats and saw the church nursery dark and abandoned like the tomb on day five.  I had to shove the three amigos into a pew with those pitiful excuses for "kid's bags" that hold nothing more than old office scratch paper and broken colored pencils with no lead.

Thanks, guys. That really helps keep them occupied after the first "All of this stuff is broken!" wail.

So instead of thinking Ash-y thoughts about what good I could put back in the world, I did my best and pretty much spent the service pondering the atrocious breakout on my forehead.

Where had it come from? Was it noticeable? Did anyone else find it odd that I was plum in the middle of being 35 and I still broke out like a kid? Would the ashes make the red less noticeable? More noticeable?

Then I got in the spirit of the day and thought about the priest.

Did he hesitate whenever a forehead appeared in front of him with a comedone the size of his face? What was the protocol? Ashes to the right of the whitehead? To the left? Man up and run your ash-heavy thumb right across the damn thing and pretend you don't notice?

Believe me, I notice things like that.

Back when I first stepped foot off the boat in Alaska (it's true, you take a ferry most times), I had a brand new MFA under my belt and zero employers interested in hiring me. It was fantastic. So much so that when Nordstrom called about an off-chance online application I'd submitted, I jumped at the chance to work at their Clinique counter.

They gave me some color cards, a ridiculous lab coat, a few free makeup samples to obsess over at home and an hourly sales goal to make before setting me free to torment the downstairs shoppers.

I wasn't a terrible consultant and within a month I'd beaten all the girls at my counter and had even put to shame a couple of the coiffed, stick-up-their-arse Lancome girls. (Take that, $80 serum freaks!)

Mostly I sold gallons of that atrocious yellow moisturizer that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole these days (hello, mineral oil!) and bars upon bars of that awful soap that dried up in the little dish the moment you took it out of the plastic.

But another part of my job was zeee actual applying of zeee makeup. Like, on the public's face.

In my mind, beauty queens and Rocky Horror Picture Show actors would be lining up for a spot in my chair, like they did at the Mac counter.

The best I ever got was a couple prom court nominees but that was only because Lancome and Mac were double booked and nobody wanted to go to the Estee Lauder counter because it smelled bad (awful, awful ancient lady perfumes).

But mostly I dealt with teenagers and really old women with lots of money and time on their hands. The teenagers wanted cover up for their ravaged skin and there was nothing short of compound joint that would help them at that point. Gobs of concealer really only highlighted the acne worse, but they weren't interested in hearing about the whole "wash your face" or at the very least "zip this toner across your forehead before bed."

The other girls were pros and would dab the product all over the erupted skin using the sensitive skin on their fingertips.

dab dab dab...swipe.

 I made the manager buy me those extra-long medical swabs because the more distance between me and a weeping white head, the better. I did my best.

poke poke poke...switch. grimace. repeat.

If the young ones were hormonal, the older ones were bitter and demanding of every single serum, cream, and sandblaster I could fit on the counter.

"Make me younger," they'd demand.

Without the Tardis nearby, there wasn't much I could do but make them look extra greasy and shiny with 19 layers of anti-aging product applied by kitchen sponge.

Other people's faces aren't my thing.

My career at the makeup counter was short lived and as far as I'm concerned, removed me from all priestly aspirations from that day forward.

And as for my priest?

Pure professional. Straight down the middle without a wince or a shudder.





this is part of "forty stories." a fun little lent challenge where i show up and write a story (of any nature, i guess) on internet paper.