New Teeth

See 'em?! Aren't they cute?! And C of course, too. :)

For my first blog post in months (yes, that's with an "s"--yikes), I contemplated an array of topics.

Basement flooding and floor redo? No way. Too depressing and practical. Plus, it all got taken care of pretty quickly, thanks to Papa and insurance and Pipestone Interiors, so the entire post would have been just about as long as these sentences.

Graduations of friends and church members?  Better, but not quite right.

A 30th birthday college friend reunion at our house? Super duper with a cherry on top! But that's a post to come, so not quite yet.

S and P's birthdays (two and four, respectively)? Awesome, but now other events have crowded in. Those will come, too.


A log of the travel Papa has done without us and I have done without him and we have done together, including our most recent trip to see Papa's parents and grandpa and to throw my sister's bridal shower? Well, that's not all that interesting as a list. Maybe when I go through some of the pictures...

The head-injury-prone S, the feverish P, and the newly toothie C, all post-vacation. And they're still smiling!

I guess the truth is that I'm still figuring out what this blog is for. I mean, it's for us--for family and friends, for people near and far who want to keep up with our goings-on. But it's certainly not a play-by-play of what happens here every day. I can't, and frankly don't, want it to be that way. It's too much work and too guilt-inducing (as in I can always be thinking, "Oh, I should have blogged about that! And because I didn't, I've failed as a mother."). I think that way enough as it is about a thousand other things that happen (or don't) every day.

So this is more of a "I'll-blog-when-I-can" blog, a "when-I-think-of-something-worthwhile-to-say" blog, and most important, a "when-my-time-doing-it-isn't-outrageously-cutting-into-my-real-life" blog. And cutting here segues nice and beautifully into the "actual" blog topic here: new teeth. (And really, what can compete with a cute baby?)

I can't fully empathize with teething children, despite having gone through it myself. Frankly, the whole process looks, feels, and often sounds like a big mess. During our first leg of our official summer travels last week, as we sweated under one-hundred-plus temperatures with three kids just-barely-four and under through four states, C's first two teeth decided to make their appearance. This is an embarrassing Mom admission, but I didn't even notice that the first had broken through until a saleslady at a store pointed it out to my mother-in-law. Um, thanks, Eddie Bauer lady! You're obviously more plugged into details than I am.

After we marveled over that little white wonder, then the temperature spiked across mid-America and the floodgates of C's salivary glands went into overdrive. I've seen a lot of saliva in my time, but I personally think C broke records. She even put on a really impressive projectile show at a nicer-than-average eatery in Edwardsville, which is a first for any Olson kid. Luckily the recipient of most of her theatrics was me and the floor, both of which are washable (thank goodness!). And C felt a lot better after channeling her inner sicky-diva. Toughie that she is, she made it through the rest of the trip, and so did we, and now we'll all recover--extra teeth and all--in the next weeks before Mil and Chris's big wedding coming up at the end of the month. Too really overkill the metaphor here, every new transition requires a little bit of pain, right? Just hopefully not so much slobber.

Teething wears out a girl.