Tooth-hurty

Today went by in a blur.  Emily had a dentist appointment at 1:45 this afternoon, and everything else in our day kind of revolved around that.  Charlotte's naptime is at 1 every afternoon, so I was really kicking myself for scheduling Emily's appointment at that particular time, as it made our whole day difficult.

But before attacking my difficult day, I ate breakfast.

Raisin oatmeal, egg

 Then Charlotte and I did a shopping trip at Common Market.  This girl was a goof the entire time, belting out Do Re Mi from The Sound of Music so loud that some people in the store actually joined in singing along with her.  Of course she got shy when I pulled the camera out though.

After getting my free coffee at Beans & Bagels (meh), I did Bodypump, then got Emily, then we hit the Asian Market for some goodies and headed home.  But when we got there the maids were in the middle of cleaning, so I ran my perishable groceries in to the garage fridge/freezer, and the girls and I just lunched in the car on various things I had bought on my shopping trip since we couldn't really all go tramping into the house to fix lunch with the maids mopping the floors.  Bad planning on my part, I should've packed something :-(  We didn't do too badly though, Emily had a block of pre-marinated tofu, some seaweed, and some juice-sweetened O's.  Charlotte had the same thing except opted for smoked salmon instead of tofu.  I had some of this smoked salmon:

plus a couple bites of this cheese.

I was super-excited to find this stuff...there are SO FEW kinds of cheese that are low-fat, lactose free and still taste decent, which is why I pretty much always just use Cabot 50% light in meals.  I LOVE aged Gouda, so I'm really pleased to have another tasty option to turn to when I tire of cheddar.  Plus it's on sale!

After picking up the patio furniture (YAY!) and stopping by Bed Bath and Beyond, we went to Emily's dentist appointment.  Emily was infinitely more relaxed this time, though Charlotte was a bit freaked and loudly commented on everything the hygienist was doing to her sister's mouth.  Then the X-rays came back, and it turns out Emily has 5 cavities.  Holy WTF.

We brush this girl's teeth every night, she eats very little sugar, and she has 5 cavities?!?!?!  Apparently we were supposed to have been flossing her teeth :-(  But honestly she only has 4 points in her whole mouth where her teeth actually touch, and even those are such tiny places it's beyond me how she managed to get so many cavities.  She definitely has Will's cavity-prone teeth, it seems.

My heart just broke thinking about my little girl having to get fillings, especially since we JUST got her over her terror of dentists.  I remember not being able to get to sleep at night in the week leading up to my first filling, and I was probably about 13 at the time!  Worse still, she would have to go in 3 separate times for about 40 minutes each to get everything filled.  They would give her Valium and nitrous, but she'd still be awake for the whole thing.  And again, 3 SEPARATE TIMES!

They also have an option where you have all the fillings done at once under general anesthesia at Shady Grove Children's Hospital, and personally  I am leaning towards that option, just to save her the trauma and the bad associations with the dentist.  We have some friends who attempted the first approach with their daughter only to have her fight so hard they couldn't fill her teeth and so they ended up going the general anesthesia route anyway.  If their daughter fought the dentist I KNOW Emily will freak out and fight.  The only thing that makes me feel yucky is that the consultant today who was talking to me about the procedure mentioned that dentists from our practice do about 8 of these procedures a week down at the hospital.  Um, excuse me?  Maybe I was oblivious as a child, but I never remember anyone I knew getting fillings in their baby teeth, and my sisters and I definitely didn't.  There are enough kids who need fillings for our dentists to be doing 8 kids a week?  That sounds like a racket to me.  I doubt kids have more cavities now than they ever used to, so it seems to me that kids back in my day still had as many cavities but dentists didn't used to feel like it was worth it to fill them?  I may try to get a second opinion.  But then I'd have to take Emily to ANOTHER appointment when she already doesn't like them.

Ugh. I don't know.  All I do know is that I hate all options that have been offered to me, so I'll just have to choose the one I hate the least.  And I had to deal with all of this crap with only a couple bites of salmon and cheese in my tummy!

When we finally got home it was after 3 and I was quick to whip up a late afternoon smoothie snack/lunch.

Berries, cherries, lots of spinach, greek yogurt, coconut milk, flax

Plus some seaweed, because the girls had been eating it all day and it looked delicious

 I also popped my new cartridge into my soda stream and started pumping out the fizzy water again.

Then I stared some kale chips...

All this...

cooks down into this.

...and some tamari almonds, also known around here as Dibby almonds because my dad makes them all the time.

I was worried my almonds wouldn't stack up to Dibby's almonds, but they seem to be a hit.  There's ONE go-to unprocessed snack my kids will eat!

I had 12 along the way

Dinner was a retooled version of last night's dinner, so it was super-delicious!

Uh oh, a hand is sneaking in

Apparently Cherry Spice wanted to be in the picture

It seems like I choose one thing and have too much of it each week.  I felt like I had too much alcohol last week, between trying to finish up leftover sangria, drinking tasty new beer and going to Green Eggs and Kegs, so I cut it out this week just to detox.  But I seem to be eating quite a bit of cheese in its place...  I've had it 3 times a day for the past couple days at least!  And tomorrow is pizza night, so I might have to snack on something different in the mornings because I am NOT giving up my salad cheeses!  A salad is nothing without cheese.

 My dessert was more cheese.  Not really.  But it would've gone well with what I DID have.

1 rectangle of Theo toasted coconut dark chocolate

2 Tbsp juice-sweetened dried cranberries

A kumquat that Charlotte requested I buy but then bit into and tossed aside

Now I'm off to Google until my fingers are raw to get as much info as I can before we make the decision about this poor girl's teeth.

Sometimes I really wish I was a kid again