confirmation

I know I've been enjoying life and my job more this school year, but tonight I got confirmation from the students. 

For the past 10-ish years, I've been a judge for the boy beauty pageant at my school (it's a fundraiser for charity).  It's always a good time.  Last year, in the midst of infertility treatments, I know I was probably mostly a shell of my usual self, going through the motions, still bonding with some kids, but definitely not loving my job (or anything else, really).  They introduce the judges individually, and last year (two months after the failed IVF), when they said my name, it was almost complete silence, maybe some polite applause.  I joked with my friend next to me that I must have been a bitch that year since I had no fans.  I think I was right, because this year, when they said my name, there was a lot more shouting and applause, and some of the kids shouting my nickname, so that felt really good.  It told me that I am back on track to being my normal self and my normal teacher self that connects with the kids and that they like.

So yay! 

too loyal?

The dentist I have been going to for 12 years (always went to my six month check-ups) was the one my first husband went to all through high school and into adulthood.  When we moved to this city (where his parents lived), he wanted to keep going to him, so I went to him too.  My now-husband hasn't been to the dentist in YEARS, and I've been trying to get him to go since we got married (didn't want to nag him before that!), but with his work schedule, it would be very hard to go to the dentist I had been going to.  It was about a 40 minute drive to get to the dentist's office from our house or from work, so with the cleaning, etc, plus the drive both ways, we're looking at almost a two-hour time commitment.  So I started doing a little research and chose a new dentist for both of us to go to that is very close to our house.  I had my first appointment with them today, and apparently, my former dentist wasn't quite as thorough as he should have been. 

I've always been very prone to tartar build-up, so my previous dentist told me to use tartar control mouthwash, before and after I brush, twice a day, and I do religiously, and it has reduced the amount of scraping that they had to do at each visit.  And at every visit, the dentist would look over my teeth, and comment on the bone loss, and always say it was due to having braces.  I trusted his judgement.  Well, today, the hygienist was measuring "pockets" of space between my gums and teeth, and apparently, it's quite bad.  So my bone loss is actually periodontal disease, caused by tartar build-up under my gums.  It builds up, creating a space between the gums and the teeth, resulting in bone loss.  The hygienist asked if my gums were sort after a cleaning from them cleaning up under the gums, and sadly, the answer is no, so I've probably never had the proper cleaning my teeth and gums have needed.

So now the fix is to have some ultra-cleaning sessions, and then have a cleaning every three months instead of every six.  The ultra-cleaning sessions will be an hour and a half each, once for each side of my mouth.  It's supposed to be pretty aggressive and I need to be numbed for it.  The hope is that once that is done, my gums will fill in the pockets and the more frequent cleanings will prevent them from forming again.  If they don't, the ultra-cleanings will need to be done every five years or so.

The old dentist wanted to give me a gum graft to fix my slightly receding gumline on my front bottom teeth.  When I mentioned that to the hygienist, she said that receding gums is a symptom of the periodontal disease, and a gum graft is really only for looks.  So nice that my old dentist wanted to treat a symptom and not the underlying cause.  I really wish I had started looking for a new dentist a long time ago, but he was so nice, and I felt bad leaving his practice for no better reason than "it's kind of a far drive."

I'm not looking forward to the ultra cleanings, but I am looking forward to having a dentist that wants to fix the problems and not just cosmetically make things look good.

only slightly bitter and not at all sad

So my best friend, aside from my sister, is now four months pregnant. She had a miscarriage a year and a half ago after getting pregnant rather quickly, so understandably has been rather paranoid this time. So far everything is going well. They felt comfortable enough to announce it to everyone this week. A lot of our friends use another blogging/networking site, so they each made a post there, and everyone made their congratulations. All expected. What I didn't expect was the girls only post that my friend made telling about the miscarriage (very few people knew about that) and that they had been trying for a year this time to get pregnant again. Again, all things that I knew. What bothered me was the ridiculous amount of support and "I'm sorry that you had to go through that" comments. When I made posts when D and I were trying and going through tests, I got very little support. D and I talked after I read through them all, and made the point that everyone loves the happy ending. So with my friend saying "hey, we struggled, but now we are having a baby" everyone can respond with "oh, that's terrible, but there's going to be a baby!! so happy for you...." With D and me, there's no happy ending in most people's opinions, just the terrible part, so they have nothing to say. Fuck 'em. We're making our own happy ending. And as D put it, "without the poop and the puke." Sort of unrelated, I was noticing the difference between men and women and baby talk. I was sitting at the table by the front door of the school (making sure people check in at the office, you know, protecting the school), and there was a conversation taking place behind me among two women and one man. They were talking about a student at first. But then one of the women started talking about her baby to the other woman, who has a baby about the same age (part of the baby boom of pregnancies last school year), and the guy goes "baby talk...I'm out." and just walked away. The women just laughed it off. My thought was "what the hell? If I did that, I'd probably be labeled a total bitch."