Yesterday Eric and I took our niece to Claire’s to pick out a bunch of jewelry and accessories for her birthday. I went to the register to pay, and the cashier asked for my email. I immediately gave it to him. Eric rolled his eyes.
Eric: “Now you’re just going to just get a bunch of emails from Claire’s every day.”
Me (muttering through a fake smile): “That’s fine, I’ll unsubscribe later.”
Eric: “Why don’t you just not give him your email?”
BECAUSE, ERIC. I WOULD RATHER RECEIVE 57 DAILY EMAILS FROM CLAIRE’S UNTIL THE DAY I DIE THAN PARTICIPATE IN A POTENTIALLY AWKWARD EXCHANGE WITH THE CASHIER WHO IS JUST TRYING TO DO HIS JOB.
As soon as this thought went through my head, though, I realized how introvert-insane it was, and I was pretty ashamed. So when the cashier then asked for my phone number, I decided to not be as forthcoming.
Me: “Do you really need my phone number?”
Cashier: “Yes, to complete it.”
I had no idea what the ‘it’ was that the cashier needed to complete. He could not have been more purposefully vague. Was the “it” my purchase? A registration to receive Claire’s discounts? A lifetime subscription to never-ending texts with no opt-out option? Approval to let them test their products on my current and any future unborn children? Admission to a Pentecostal cult?
It couldn’t be possible that this children’s jewelry store REQUIRED your phone number to make a purchase. That would be nuts. And while a clogged inbox doesn’t really bother me, constant promotional texts softly threaten my will to live, so this is where I needed to draw the line. This was my clear-cut opportunity to just say no, and not be such a conflict-averse pushover of a human.
Eric looked at me. I looked at Eric. Eric gave me an encouraging nod. I knew what had to be done.
So I turned back to the cashier, took a deep breath, stared him straight in the eye, and in my clearest, bravest, most confident voice, slowly enunciated all ten digits of my phone number.
Today I went to the OBGYN for a regular check up– my first one since giving birth to Sophie.
Receptionist (reviewing my forms): “Oh. We have you in the system as Emily. Did you change your name?”
Me: “What? No. Why?”
Receptionist: “Under patient name you wrote ‘Sophie.'”
Me: “Oh my god, I did? Sorry. That’s my daughter’s name. I’m always going to doctors for my kids and can’t remember the last time I had a check up for myself, I must have been on autopilot.”
Receptionist (smiles politely): “I see. So you’re still Emily?”
When Nora announced she wanted to take ballet lessons, I was of course supportive, but also amused because as a child (and adult!), I was the furthest thing from a graceful dancer. Or any kind of dancer. I don’t exactly walk straight.
I was a soccer player. And generally a tomboy who partook in nothing classically “girly.”
But when your child is excited about something (that is actually productive and not mind-numbingly stupid, like Candyland or football), you hop on board. So I got her the necessary gear and dropped her off for her very first ballet class. I was pretty proud of how professional she looked in her lavender leotard, pink ballet slippers and ballerina bun. No one could ever guess her mom had to google “stuff for ballet?” in order to get her ready for class.
Then when I picked her up…
Instructor: “Hi there! You’re Nora’s mom?”
Me: “I am!”
Instructor: “In case you’re wondering why Nora’s barefoot— I had her take off her shoes for class.”
Me: “Oh, were they hurting her?”
Instructor: “No, she couldn’t point her toes in them.”
Me: “Oh. Because they’re too small?”
Instructor: “No. Because they’re not ballet slippers.”
Me: “They’re not?”
Instructor: “No.”
Me: “They look like ballet slippers to me!”
Instructor: “Ok. They are not, though.”
Me: “How can one even tell these aren’t ballet slippers?”
Instructor: “Well, you can tell because they’re not slippers. And they’re not, you know…for ballet.”
Me:
“Well then what kind of shoes ARE these?”
Instructor: “Pink shoes. Flats. They are pink flats. With a rounded toe.”
Me: “For…?”
Instructor: “Walking? Wearing to school? Or a party? They’re for anything, really. Except, of course, ballet.”
On Friday night, after a lovely dinner of lovely Indian food with some lovely friends, my bra promptly exploded. You know, as bras do.
You didn’t know? Right, me neither. Because bras don’t actually do that. At least 99.999999% of the time you put on a bra, you can expect it to not implode. But as I’m sure you’ve learned by now, odds are not my friend.
Unfortunately, this was not a fun, flirty fembot type bra explosion. That would’ve been awesome.
No, this was more of a horrific, confusing turn of events, because at first, it appeared as if my boobs themselves were the source of combustion.
We came home from dinner and when I went to the bathroom sink to wash up, I promptly noticed that my shirt was drenched in the chest region. I wish I could say I was wearing black, or any dark color for that matter, thus making it less obvious/mortifying. I was not.
“Oh, that’s embarrassing, I’m leaking milk” I thought, before my brain cells, wading through the sea of tequila I’d consumed, came up for air and informed me that I had stopped breastfeeding my baby 8 months prior.
Eric, cued by my ensuing screams, came racing to the bathroom to see what was happening, but quickly lost interest once he realized I had ripped off my bra in panic, not invitation.
Utterly confused by the sheer volume and odd consistency of the unidentifiable liquid, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that I must be experiencing some weird, unfounded symptom of early onset menopause or early onset death.
Luckily, a quick google search confirmed that oily liquid exploding from your boobs is pretty fucking weird, but probably not an emergency and also probably it’s definitely not coming from your boobs, you idiot. Check your bra.
Further googling revealed that some push up bras are made with packets of oil inside them, and while EXTREMELY RARE, they CAN burst, and then leak. Everywhere.
Bra-blast is more likely to happen if the garment is very old, so this is definitely not my fault because I bought this bra only like two decades months ago, guys!!!
I think I wore it to prom.
So, ladies (and/or men. No discriminating here!), this is a PSA to update your lingerie. You never know when it might attack.
A wise man once said, “Don’t wait until you’re 40 fucking years old to get your wisdom teeth removed, you dumb dumb dodo bird.”
I mean I’m paraphrasing/making that up entirely but the point is, don’t wait. Because you know what the OPPOSITE of wisdom is? Sitting on your ass and doing nothing about your wisdom teeth, and waiting until your body reaches the (apparently decrepit?) age of 40, which then makes the procedure about 10 times more complex and susceptible to multiple kinds of nasty post-surgery complications. WHO KNEW?!*
*All dentists. All doctors. Most adults. Definitely some kids. Not me, though!
Now, in my defense, I was never explicitly told that I needed to get my wisdom teeth removed. It was always a kind of “on the fence” situation. Three of them grew in fine, but the bottom left remained SLIGHTLY impacted (meaning part of the tooth did not emerge from the gums. Follow me for more definitions of things you already know).
Beginning around age 17, dentists started to comment that “they should probably be taken out, but if they don’t cause pain, there’s no rush.” Well, the procrastinator in me loves nothing more than to hear “No rush!” so I kicked my feet up and sat on that shit for decades, like a boss.
My teeth never hurt. So I did what I do best– nothing.
Dentists kept mentioning it “would be a good idea” to remove them soon, but my brain clearly has an aversion to ideas that are good. So I continued to live my life, eat my sweets, and pretend that my body was not deteriorating with age.
Then I got pregnant with Sophie and I’m not sure the exact correlation, but my teeth started to hurt like a bitch. I went to the dentist after a 2-year COVID hiatus, at which point he kindly informed me, in the most gentle way possible, that it was absolutely batshit insane that I was still holding on to these teeth.
Me: “But they give me wisdom, right?”
Dentist:
Me: “Maybe you’ve heard that one before…”
Dentist: “This is serious. You need to remove these IMMEDIATELY. You cannot wait.”
Hearing these words and digesting the gravity of my situation, I did what any responsible adult would do and waited 11 more months.
Which brings us to last week, when I finally had them removed. And you know what guys, I’m not sure what all the scary warnings and dire tones were about because it was, like, nothing.
No jk it’s been horrible.
Here’s why. Apparently, the reason to NOT WAIT to get your wisdom teeth out (a reason that was never explicitly explained to me before I met with the surgeon, but that I probably could have figured out with a quick google search or, you know, some common fucking sense) isn’t just because your body is older and slower to heal (although that never helps! Middle age is cool cool cool.)
The more pressing issue is that the longer you keep the wisdom teeth, the deeper the roots grow into your gums, and the closer those roots are to approaching a very important huge ass nerve that runs along your jawline (it’s called the Mandibular Nerve, but I try not to get too medically technical on this blog because, you know, #notadoctor, but if you’re interested in more information please feel free to use the google and then let me know what it says).
The oral surgeon determined from my x-ray that the bottom left tooth (the impacted one) had roots VERY close to this nerve, so he felt inclined to warn me that nerve damage was a possibility. A very rare possibility, but a possibility nonetheless.
Me: “Ok, but like HOW rare?”
Surgeon: “VERY rare.”
Me: “Like so rare that it definitely shouldn’t stop me from getting the surgery?”
Surgeon: “Yes, that rare. I’ve only had one patient with nerve complications, and he was almost twice your age.”
Me: “Ok that sounds pretty fucking rare.”
Surgeon: “INCREDIBLY rare.”
So naturally, I have nerve damage.
The bottom left side of my face, from lower lip to chin, is completely numb. Oh, unless you count the constant burning, itching and tingling sensations that I can do nothing about, because when I try to scratch or massage the area, it is paralyzed and therefore touching it is useless. It’s that exact feeling of when your dental anesthesia is starting to wear off, and you feel the tingling but you’re still numb and uncomfortable and if you try to sip wine water it will dribble down your chin like a 90 year old hospice patient. And it’s ALL the time. Additionally, I’ve lost partial sense of taste and smell, so I don’t even get the satisfaction of fully enjoying the ice cream that rolls out of my mouth, down my face and into my neck.
So that’s been cool.
The surgeon (the same one who really played up that “rare” factor) feels “cautiously optimistic” that the damage is temporary, which would be reassuring if I had more than -2% faith in him, which I do not. And even if the damage IS temporary, it will still take 3 months to a year to resolve. THREE. MONTHS. TO. A. YEAR. Who has that kind of time?! Alright, fine. I do. But it’s annoying.
So that’s where we are. Wisdom teeth gone, jaw aching, nerves shot. The only positive is that I can now use this as a cautionary tale to warn all of you, and save you from similar despair– DO NOT WAIT TO REMOVE YOUR WISDOM TEETH.
I’m sorry, what’s that? This advice is useful to no one, because you removed yours at 17, like a not-idiot? WELL CHEERS TO YOU THEN.
People keep asking me if I’ve made any new friends here in Westport. But listen guys, it’s always hard when you move to a new place. And even harder when there’s a global pandemic. And even HARDER when you’re the kind of person who uses the global pandemic as an excuse, when really it’s just that you’re awkward and you hate meeting new people and talking in general and doing stuff that isn’t on your couch or phone.
Regardless, this week I actually started to make some social headway.
During Nora’s farm class (shut up) I was chatting it up with a bunch of moms who seemed refreshingly normal. As we watched our kids chase roosters around the chicken coop (yeah I’m just as confused by my new life as you are), one mom commented that every time she leaves the class, her son’s socks, shoes, and ankles are caked in mud.
I nodded knowingly. It’s absolutely never not often that I feel like I have worthwhile mom advice to give, but for once, I had it and I owned it.
Me: “So, I had the same problem with Nora. I finally got smart and put her in tall rain boots for class. So only the boots get dirty. Then after class I take them off, put them in a plastic bag, and have a clean pair of sneakers for her in the car.”
Other Mom: “Oh my god brilliant! A clean pair of sneakers! I always have a change of clothes in the trunk, but it didn’t even occur to me to have clean sneakers!”
“Oh yeah, the clean sneakers are key,” I replied, while mentally collecting my parenting trophy.
Other Mom: “Seriously, why didn’t I think of clean sneakers? Every week I’m here chasing him around, making sure he doesn’t step in THAT, and bring THAT into my car.”
She pointed to a gigantic pile of caked mud and animal poop. Just a huge steaming pile of shit. A mountain, really. It was as if every animal on the farm– the sheep, the cows, the alpaca, even the lone Nubian goat– had made a pact to ONLY shit in that one designated spot.
And of course, at the exact moment we all turned to look at said shit-pile, Nora sauntered right on over to it.
But I wasn’t worried.
Other Mom: “Uh oh, watch out for your daughter!”
Me (laughing): “Nah, she’s fine. She’s just checking it out. As much as she loves stepping in a good rain puddle, she does NOT like things that are straight up gross.”
And as if right on cue, Nora then turned around, a complete 180, and walked as far away from the pile as possible.
Other Mom: “Wow, good for her! And good for you! You really know your kid!”
Me (admittedly smug): “Yeah, she’s pretty good about–“
And that’s when I heard the rushed pitter patter of little feet and swung back around to see Nora sprinting across the chicken coop with Forrest-Gump like determination– straight toward the steaming pile of shit.
It turned out she hadn’t walked away because she found it disgusting, she had walked away because she wanted to give herself A RUNNING START.
I yelled for her to stop, but she just waved her hand at me and screamed back, “IT’S OK MOM! I HAVE MY BOOTS! I CAN’T GET DIRTY!”
I flashed back to the conversation we had in the car on the way to the farm. She did not want to wear her boots. But I had explained, over and over, that it’s a good idea to wear the boots, because if she wears them she can step in mud and SHE WON’T GET DIRTY.THE BOOTS WILL PROTECT HER. This reasoning had made her very happy and compliant, and I had awarded myself approximately 785 gold parenting stars.
God DAMMIT.
Before I could intercept, Nora completed her sprint and took an Olympic-style pole-vaulting leap into the fresh pile of animal dung. She soared through the air with the confidence of a superhero, armed with the certainty that her magic boots would act as a full-body protective cloak.
The entire farm watched in shocked silence as, upon landing, Nora’s feet gave out from under her, and her tiny little tod-bod sank into the dune, which completely enveloped her, quicksand style, in shit. Even the hairy, 500-pound hog, half asleep in a mud puddle, was repulsed.
As soon as Nora discovered that her magic boots had not performed their mommy-promised protective powers, the high-pitched, bloody-murder screams commenced.
While hyperventilating and snot-sobbing like me on election night 2016, she somehow managed to extricate herself from the dung mountain. She surveyed the lumpy streams of crap covering HER ENTIRE BODY– her shirt, her pants, her hands, her face. Everything drenched and dripping in feces.
She ran toward me, arms outstretched, hysterical, screaming, “MOMMY HELP MEEEEEEE!!!!!” She was clearly traumatized and desperately seeking solace, so I did what any parent would do in this situation.
I ran the fuck away from her.
She was covered in shit, you guys!!!
The pack of moms stared in disbelief as Nora chased me around the chicken coop and I literally hopped the fence to avoid her. One of them half heartedly offered a change of clothes, but I assured her “No no, that’s ok, thank you– I have clothes in the car, obviously. You’re not a mom unless you cart around a change of clothes, right?!” (casual laugh).
I had no change of clothes.
Keeping a good 5-foot distance ahead of her, I somehow managed to verbally coax Nora back to the car, where I promptly covered my hands in plastic bags and stripped her down naked right there on the grassy knoll. I then bathed her with baby wipes as she stood there screaming, her pale little wrinkled tush blowing in the 50-degree breeze. I should mention that we were parked roughly 30 feet from a gardening event attended by approximately 15 senior citizens, all of whom were watching this scene unfold. Plastic-bag-hands covered in shit, I waved.
After what seemed like an eternity, I finally got Nora decently clean, shoved her clothes in a garbage bag, and threw her in the car seat. She rode home buck naked and wailing.
At the kiddie gym this morning, Nora was being particularly social and adorable, walking up to kids and giving high fives, sharing her blocks, hugging all the nannies, and giggling at everything. I sat in the corner with a random dad, both of us watching her make her rounds, when the dad turned to me:
Random Dad: “Ok, so I have to know– what’s your secret?!”
Me (laughing): “Honestly, I don’t have one! I don’t know how she got this amazing, friendly, adorable personality. It’s certainly not from me! She takes after my husband more, I think. He’s very outgoing. But I’ll take some credit because she’s with me most of the day, so I guess I must be doing something right?”
Random Dad: “Oh. I meant how’d you get that coffee in here? They never let me bring mine in.”
Last year, I changed an autocorrect setting on my iPhone because every time I tried to write “fuck” or “fucking” (often and always), the phone changed it to “duck” or “ducking.” Since I’ve used the words “duck” and “ducking” in conversation all of NEVER times, I decided to change the setting so that instead it autocorrects “duck” to “fuck,” because fuck is clearly the word I want.
Until this ONE TIME.
Yesterday there was a family email chain discussing meal options for our upcoming Outer Banks vacation.
So….you probably realize what’s about to happen. What you don’t realize is exactly HOW MUCH god hates me:
Yup.
It’s the emoji that really makes me want to head down to city hall and register for a new family. I clearly don’t deserve to be in this one.
Moments later my Dad replied with this:
I can only assume that’s because he read my words and had a stroke.
Nora had a second surgery on Monday to remove a cyst that had developed on one of the suture sites, and to remove one of the four silicone slings holding her eyelids up.
Surgeon (right before surgery): “[lengthy explanation of everything he will do, process and risks of anesthesia, post-op care, etc ]….and that’s it. It should be a quick surgery, about 20 minutes. Do you have any questions before we take her into the operating room?”
Me: “Only 20 minutes? So I won’t have time to get an ice cream downstairs?”
I go to pick up a couple medications at CVS, and a male pharmacist is ringing me up…
Pharmacist (to Nora): “Hi cutie!” (then, to me) “Are you breastfeeding?”
Me (taken aback): “Excuse me? Um, NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS?!?”
Pharmacist: “Oh, I….”
Me: “JESUS. Why do men– or anyone for that matter– think it’s ok to ask a woman that? I really don’t understand. It’s completely inappropriate. Honestly, shame on you. And I say that on behalf of all women.”
Pharmacist: “I’m required by law to ask you that before handing you this medication.”
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