No pictures

So.. I brought the camera with charged batteries. Get there and they say "oh, only the patient is allowed in the room"

Come again?

"only the patient, you can't leave the other kids in the waiting room and you can't take them with you"

Well, that would have been useful information when I called for the appointment.

I should have been tipped off when they said "we can only see 2 people from a family in a day" I didn't think to ask "well, can I only take 2 people WITH me??" for crying out loud , it says FAMILY dentist. FAMILY.

grumble grumble growl and hiss

so.. I say "well, you'll have to reschedule us"

She says "isn't there someone you can call to come watch them?"

WHAT IS IT with people here that they keep thinking this is a viable option? Is that what people do here? They call someone and say "hey, meet me at the dentist in 20 minutes to keep me company and watch my kids"
Yeah, I have A (one) friend and she works. So.. sure.. I'll call her and ask her to leave work, drive 40 minutes to get here or if she's off work, she'll take her 3 kids here to completely fill this waiting room and it'll still be 40 minutes.
Or perhaps you'd like to talk to my husband's commanding officer and explain why he has to leave work because you can't deal with kids in a dentist office that deals with kids. IF I had an option to leave the kids at home, I WOULD HAVE.

but no- they don't want to reschedule, because that's a canceled appointment.. times 2

so.. 20 year old with the power trip says "oh, they can go by themselves, the hygenists are good with kids" I repeat- this is their first visit, they're nervous and Darn it. I'm their mom. I have a right to be there.

we're at an impasse. I ask Joey and Sonia loud enough for ding dong at the desk to hear 'do you think you can be brave and go without mommy?' and it's a resounding NO with tearfulness.

So.. I look at the grandma sitting there watching her 2 year old grandson (so.. yes, apparently that IS what they do here) and ask her- will you be here a while and do you think you could keep an eye on the little 2 so I can go back for a few minutes to make sure the older 2 are ok- it's their first visit..

And she agrees. Shoot power tripping receptionist the 'ha, I win' look

I stayed long enough for them to read me the riot act about being near radiation (they took xrays first thing there before looking at them or ANYTHING) and telling me I couldn't be there. Anyway.. the kids seemed ok when reassured that they wouldn't get a shot in their mouth like little critter does in his 'going to the dentist' book

So.. I'm looking for a different dentist. But.. again.. socialized medicine/dentistry has it's price in both choice and convenience. So.. none of the dentists others have recommended participate with our socialized dentistry plan- only offices like this one who know their only competition is about as friendly as they are (that would sarcasm) And I call it socialized, but it isn't really - we pay for it out of our check like normal people do, but it's government run so.. we'll be continuing to pay for it and I'll continue to blog about it while remembering it could always be worse- like I could have had to pay for this charming experience out of pocket.

No news..

Nothing new or exciting to report here. Tomorrow will be Sonia and Joey's first dentist appointment. I'm sure the recommendation is that they should have seen the dentist before.. but.. well.. I knew they were going to loose those baby teeth, anyway, so why make a big deal of it.. (and I have vivid childhood dental trauma memories I'd prefer to spare them... WHO in their right mind pulls out baby teeth because they're not falling out in the right order?.. apparently the only pediatric barbarian practicing dentistry where I grew up. Considering that Kayla got an eye tooth in before the others, I assume her atypical teething has something to do with her mother's atypical teeth..)

I'll probably take pictures for the imaginary scrapbook* and of course, share them here.. but that assumes a) I can find the camera b) the batteries are charged c) I remember the camera and d) the dental staff puts up with my camera.

But.. we don't know where we'll be next year. And infact, we don't know when we will know.. So.. until I say otherwise.. we don't know.

But it's a bit frustrating- IF I want to re-enroll the kids in their charter school, I need to send the forms in this week. Well.. what if we're not here next year? huh? why all this pressure to re-enroll??!! There didn't seem to be a problem enrolling them at the last minute.. The real problem is that I'll have to take them in for a physical.. which I'm dreading. For a variety of reasons.. but mostly because it's my goal to avoid spending any time at the hospital there.
But of course, if they offered me a job.. I just might take them up on it.

* imagainary scrapbook- the one I think I'm going to make for the kids, but in reality it will probably never get done. To be honest, they HAVE scrapbooks and the lucky ones have a few things stuffed in them waiting to be pasted, formatted or otherwise turned into a scrapbook page.

Another day in Paradise

So seriously. Today is a day of thanks that God made a place with weather and climate such as here. Today was............. in the 70's, yesterday in the 80's.

I realized that people (myself included in the past) would spend money to visit this weather in the middle winter and here I am living it everyday.

The leaking pipes that were giving us water issues here were fixed today but took so long that I didn't have time remaining to "do" the other things on my "to do" list so.. we went for a walk. Hike to be specific.

At one of the entrances to our neighborhood, there is a road that leads off to a junk yard and monastery and next to that there is a road that looks like it would go to the trail that I have yet to find a way to get onto.. and I decided we should go for a walk.. and it was a tie between down/up our street or the bike trail or trying to get to the trail that runs behind our house..

So.. it turns out it was 1/2 mile straight uphill.
And at the top there was a water treatment facility with a touchpad to call someone. WHO? I'm not sure. How do I know that it calls someone? My youngest decided to push some buttons.

And there was no way to get to the trails or the path that runs behind our house (which I have seen signs that say it's not open to the public.. still trying to figure why they have them if they're just to be there and not be used for anything by anyone....)

So.. it was straight downhill back to the van.

and you know what's going to happen, right? steep hill, pavement drop offs on both sides of the pavement... Right. I knew, too- so I tell them DO NOT RUN down the hill. What do they do? yes, you are right- they RUN.

now 2 of the 4 have road rash on their foreheads.

And the entire way down the hill the dog howled. I think she was tired and upset that the kids were outrunning her. There were others there that also were there for a walk with their dogs. One laughed as we walked past, hearing her howl, saying "oh, that's a good hound dog, listen to that"

yeah. I listen to that daily. you should have heard her when the landscape irrigation people were here digging up pipes for hours..... and every morning when she thinks we should be up.. before the sun.. and now.. she'd having a dream and apparently there's something to howl at in her dream...

Change.org

Is it just me? Or is it hard for others to take an organization seriously who has 2 of it's 4 top rated agenda involve legalizing/decriminalizing drugs/marijuana?

*sigh*

Among the other agendas- forgive student loans and make college affordable for all. (hmm.. I wonder if there's a particular age range voting in these polls..???) I'm all for making college affordable, but not on the tax payer's dime.. with all the other entitlement/bailout programs that are sinking this country.. (but that would be a different rant)

Anyway- it looks like there are some small victories in the battle of the CPSIA this week- it appears that there is provision for existing inventory to be sold, provided it doesn't have lead, it excludes used good resellers (consignment/thrift stores) and excludes from required testing natural/untreated materials- among which one is cotton (*phew*) I was surprized they included cotton in the natural state materials but not bamboo, but hey.. we peddle cotton mostly, so it's a halfway victory for us.

And.. no word on our future. I'm not really expecting one anytime soon.. although when the decisions were being made, I initally was under the (incorrect) impression that we'd know mid December like we did last year.. but.. no. That would be incorrect.
I have a gut feeling on this one that we're going to be surprized. So..seat belts are fastened.. I'm ready..

I realized- it's hard to fly if you're planting roots somewhere. So.. I guess we'll be birds and let others be the trees.

And a non-undate on the personal side of life...

Still no word on where we're going to be after June.

Lots of rumors and rumors of rumors at this point.

Almost as many as the rumors of war and deployments here.

BUT.. on the bright side- we are NOT eligible to be sent to Japan (those details surfaced yesterday). There is a 2 kids limit on that particular assignment- we could have gone with waiver with 3 kid, but with 4... breathe easy on that one, mom and dad.

And... I thought this was ironic- it's from the T-shirt the recruiter gave Larry when we signed up:

It really means you're going to feel really old really fast

I can't believe it came down to this

I registered at Change.org to vote.

CSPIA inspired post

If you are under the rock I was under until recently, I'm sure you haven't heard of the CSPIA.

The history of it lays in last year's toy recall- remember all those toys recalled? And the outrage that the CPSC hadn't done anything to prevent it?

In steps congress- who passes a law -HR 4040- otherwise known as the CSPIA which says that all items/products intended for a child under the age of 12 must be tested for lead and meet the lead limits set AND passed a ban on phthalates.

Sounds ok, almost, right- I mean-no one was happy that we were importing toys that were unsafe.. but this one went too far- ALL ITEMS for children under 12- ALL. Books, clothes, cloth diaper included. ALL.

Congress debated this law less time than it takes them to give themselves a pay raise. And because it's retroactive to all product in inventory on Feb 10th, it means what is sitting on selves unsold at that time is trash. unsellable unless it has a General certificate of conformity.

So why not get one of those certificates? Sure.

Follow the money on this one- I'll have to contact a CPSC certified lab (who is paid to certify them) to have them test every product I have from every production run and then have a way to label and track all items sold and provide the GCC for them... and this will be to the tune of $100-400/component.

oh, yes- that's component. In our products, it's pretty simple- Cloth and thread, maybe velcro. God help those who make clothes- the zipper, elastic, thread and each type of fabric must be tested.

And when we get the GCC for our product and someone wants to embroider it for burp cloths- ya know what? they're going to have to have it RE-tested because it's now it's a different final product.

Want to get involved? Check The National Bankruptcy Day website for links to petitions, addresses for your congressmen and get informed. This is going to be a huge unnecessary economic drain for LOTS of small companies.