I have to give a bit of background. I'll try to keep it brief.

Back in September we took Madalyn to the dentist, "Dentist A", and found she had two cavities, one of which was severe enough to need a cap. Despite this Dentist A could not get us in for an appointment to fix the teeth for another month after that. In the interim our coverage with Dentist A ended, resulting in my having to cancel the appointment to have the work, as Dentist A only takes this particular coverage and does not accept self-paying clients, even if they have the money.

As soon as I determined I didn't know if we'd get the coverage back, I called and made an appointment with a different dentist, Dentist B, so we could just pay out of pocket and get it taken care of once and for all. There was a consult appointment where they took x-rays and came to the same conclusion -- filling in one, cap on the other. Then there was a bit of a wait for the next appointment.

Appointment day arrives. Madalyn is nervous. We arrive and she's crying. Not hysterical, not violent, just snuffling because she doesn't know what's going to happen. We are greeted literally before the door has closed behind us by a person who says, "If she's going to be LIKE THAT maybe she needs to go see Dentist C" (who is a local dentist who does sedation). Uh, excuse me? "Like that"? Like what? Nervous? Yeah, because NOBODY is ever nervous when they go to the dentist. That's not common at all. That's why they spent the entire time I was getting my teeth filled last time repeatedly asking me if I was "sure" I didn't want the gas.

Dentist B then comes out, takes one look at Madalyn and immediately tells his people to call Dentist C and make us an appointment. They didn't even TRY to put Madalyn in the chair and put the nitrous on her. If they had I think she'd have been fine. I pointed this out and was told that she wouldn't be able to breathe through her nose since she'd been crying. Um, hello, ever heard of blowing your nose? How do you know the state of her sinuses? It almost seemed as though they were looking for a reason not to deal with her. They had seen her before and she had behaved beautifully. They had NO REASON to assume she was going to freak out on them and they could have, at the very least, put her in the chair to see what happened. But we never got past the lobby. By the time I finished talking to the receptionist Madalyn had stopped crying and even asked why we were leaving as we walked out the door.

They had tried to call Dentist C for me but the office was closed that day so they passed the buck to me. Then Thanksgiving rolled around and this other place is closed on Mondays so I only just now got to call them today to see about an appointment. Now, despite the fact that TWO OTHER DENTISTS have determined what needs to be done, AND the fact that we have x-rays that show what needs to be done, Dentist C will not do the work without a "consult" first -- which, conveniently, costs $75 aside from however bloody much they will charge for the actual work. Oh yes, and they only see patients three days a week, and we can't even get in for the consult until December 20th. God knows when they will be able to get around to actually FIXING HER FRIGGING TEETH. So she is sitting here with her teeth rotting out of her head like some backwoods hillbilly and there's nothing I can do about it. Because God forbid someone should miss a chance to bilk the insurance companies (or, in this case, me) out of an extra $75, even though all the preliminary work has already been done TWICE. It's been FOUR MONTHS since we found she had a cavity bad enough to require a crown. Do these people think it's going to spontaneously quit decaying? It's just getting worse and worse the longer this drags on! It seems like there should be some amount of hurry-up involved here but it seems I'm the only one who feels that way.

Oh, and I also tried explaining to the woman on the phone at Dentist C's that I really think the gas would be enough and that I'd like to try it before we knock her completely out, and she was fairly dismissive and said that was for us to determine at the consult. I love it when people who've never met my kid know more about her than I do.....or maybe that just happens when there's money involved, as I'm sure sedation pays way more than nitrous does.

If anyone knows a good dentist who is reasonable and could actually deign to make time to see Madalyn sometime before her damned teeth fall out of her head, I'm open for suggestions.

Baby! And everything's fine! No horns or cloven hooves, so I'd consider it a victory,already.

Okay, okay....I know more than that. We will be buying crib bedding in......

Yesterday was a bit of a drag. Madalyn was supposed to have her teeth filled at 3 p.m. -- finally -- but when we got to the dentist she was crying a little and everyone there basically freaked out and they wouldn't see her, pawning us off instead to the pediatric dentist in town, who will sedate her. I was very upset, one, because they didn't even TRY to put her in the chair and get the gas going and see what happened, and she would've been fine if they'd done that. It's not like she was hysterical or violent; she was just doing a low-level snuffling because she was nervous. And, two, this has been dragging on for several months due to having to change dentists, appointments taking a long time to be secured, etc. We have had this hanging over our heads for quite a while and I thought finally we were going to get it over with -- only to have it put off even longer. Then a few hours later Robert gets a call from the guy he splits the legal work with up in the panhandle. The guy had a family crisis and begged Robert to go up there today in his place. The only problem? Today was the day of the big ultrasound. So I cancelled it and will move it to next week......though missing the appointment turned out to be inevitable,as you'll soon see.

Since I already had after-school childcare lined up I decided to go ahead and go to my midwife appointment in the city and then let the sitter take the kids as planned so I could do some Christmas shopping before I came home. The prospect of a good meal and leisurely shopping -- surely it would turn out to be a day far superior to the one we had yesterday, right?

Ha.

Ha dihahahahahaha.

I was zipping along the highway about three miles outside of Norman when I ran over an object that appeared to be shaped like a piece of lumber, but was black. I didn't see it in time to switch lanes to avoid it. It bounced squarely up under the van with a thunk. I was annoyed but didn't think much more about it.

I got off the freeway a couple minutes later, in Norman, to get a chicken sandwich at Chick-Fil-A before continuing on to the city. About thirty seconds after I exited it dawned on me that I was smelling gasoline. Now, it didn't take a bloody rocket scientist to figure out that this was Not a Good Thing. But I clung to the thin hope that perhaps there had been some sort of spill at one of the gas stations and that I was simply passing the smell, which would then abate as I got further away.

Fat chance.

I pulled into a parking spot at the mall and the smell got stronger. Now, at this point I'm wishing I didn't have to get out of the van and look, but couldn't figure out a way to make that happen. So I got out. And then wanted to climb back in and lie down with my head under the backseat. Gasoline was pouring in a river out from under the vehicle. This was just so bad, on so many levels, and it took me a moment to get my head together and figure out who to call. I finally settled on 911. They sent the Norman Fire Department, who spent the next hour-and-a-half cleaning up so it would be safe to tow.

Let me not forget to mention, I had three-quarters of a tank of gas in the beast at the time. I had just pumped $45 into it and was now watching it all drain merrily away down the mall parking lot. 80% of the time I am driving around with a quarter of a tank or less but the time my gas tank is punctured it's almost full. Ah, irony. You're a cruel, cruel mistress.

Next stop: the local Dodge dealership. The first order of business was for them to assess the damage. Well, naturally, it being me we're talking about and, by association, Robert, we couldn't possibly receive anything but the worst possible diagnosis. The gas tank? It is destroyed. I believe the word "smithereens" was used at one point. It will take 3-4 days for the new tank to even arrive and then it will be installed, to the tune of more than $1100. The service guy assured me that just about every insurance policy covers things like this so we are off first thing in the a.m. to talk to our agent and hopefully at least part of this will be paid for by them. This is assuming my policy is current, by the way, for which there is never any guarantee.

I got a rental car in order to get myself home, since Robert is in the panhandle. I did go do a bit of shopping after that but my heart just wasn't in it. Things like this tend to put a damper on the spirits of even the most rabid consumer.

Cripes.

Wow, this is pretty pathetic!

I have nothing to say for myself except that I'm a lazy, lazy human being. I could take the easy way out and play the "I'm gestating and it takes all my energy" card but I'm above that.

Actually.....I'm not.

I'm gestating and it takes all my energy.

On the bright side, I'm not getting sick any more. Not to say that I don't still have days when my tummy doesn't agree with me but the actual porcelain-god-praying phase seems to be over. For someone in this condition, though, if it's not one thing, it's another. The nausea has abated only to be replaced by a deep, abiding exhaustion. Actually, I think the exhaustion was always here but I was too busy yacking to notice it before.

Anyway, semi-comatose state aside, I'm almost 21 weeks along now -- over halfway done, unless I go overdue, which we will just pretend is completely and totally NOT possible. The ultrasound is a week from today and I'm terribly excited. Getting confirmation this is really a girl will be great and it's going to be a 4D ultrasound so we are going to get an amazing look at what this little one really looks like. They didn't even have 4D ultrasounds last time I was pregnant. We will be given a bunch of still photos from it and also will have part of it on videotape, which I will be working on transferring to computer so I can upload it to YouTube for everyone to see.

In non-babymaking news Madalyn and I leave for a "Girls' Pre-Weekend Weekend" on Thursday. We'll be going down to Dallas to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular (starring the Rockettes) on Thursday night. We'll spend the night and, on Friday, we'll go to the Ripley's Believe it or Not museum and House of Wax before heading home. On the way home we'll stop for lunch at Maggiano's Little Italy. We ate there when we were in the area last month and I had a fried zucchini appetizer that I seriously considered proposing marriage to.

There's more on which to update but seeing as how I've broken my resolution to be in bed by 11 p.m. yet again I will wrap it up for tonight. I really, really hope to do better at keeping up with things around here! The cobwebs in the corners are going to be a bear to clean up!

Well, 9 years ago, today, I married the big lug in Las Vegas.

As a symbol of our enduring love and commitment, he went out of town for work yesterday and won't be back till midnight or later tonight. I guess that's no worse than last year when I jumped ship to go spend the night with Paul McCartney. Or three years before that, when I sent him back to Oklahoma and stayed in California because I didn't want to go home that early and he had to be back for work.

Romantics, we're not.

We do plan to get a babysitter in the next week or so and go up to one of the big, fancy new casinos they've built around here and spend an evening being irresponsible. That's more our scene than flowers and jewelry and long, romantic dinners. Shovel down the food as quickly as possible and bring on the gambling, I say. The demon liquor won't be involved this year, my present condition taken into consideration. 'Tis probably just as well; one vice at a time is enough for two old married farts like us.

Happy anniversary to us, at any rate!