Day 57. The Big Mouth.

This morning we had an ortho apt at 8:30. Taylor has been with a retainer for 8 months now. It's zebra with crystals in it, by the way, (where were these choices when I was little?) The top of her mouth was too tiny....the ortho expert people say that surgery would be in her future without the retainer/separator apparatus (that cost us $1100). We turn a little crank on the middle of the retainer 2x's a week, and now 8 months later, BAM insta-big mouth Taylor. Next visit, she will likely be able to stop the cranking and just continue to wear for the duration of the treatment time. I find that amazing. I want to tease her about being a big mouth, but I will resist. When she was four, her dentist told me to start saving for her ortho treatments...that's never a good sign. So, phase one of her ortho care is nearing completion and I did not have the nerve to ask about phase two. I scared.

At the end of the apt., the ortho man says..."so, are we off to school now?" I cringed and said as normal as I could, "oh no, I homeschool and actually we are headed to chuck e cheese, for a field trip." To which I get the response of "oh, what are you going to learn there? the value of a token?". I adore our ortho man, truly. However, those comments, then led into a 15 minute conversation of all kinds of questions about homeschooling from him. To which it ended with, " I sound like I am thinking of homeschooling my kids and I'm not, I mean my wife would never do it...she likes her personal time too much."

"Um o.k"....I mutter some awkward comments and then we head out for the rest of our day. I really don't want to become bitter and defensive. I really don't. But honestly I struggle...people comment ALL the time. I really don't think it's intended in some ill fashion. However, my son even commented to me the other day that he doesn't like how many people talk to him about homeschooling. It makes him feel "different". I need to get thicker skin I suppose.

Anyway, on to other things...off to Chuck E. Cheese. We arrived their at 9:15 and stayed until almost 1. I brought things to work on and we all just hung out. It rocked. We had the place to ourselves until about 10:30.

Some big things happened today at Chuck E's place...

First, I looked over and was astonished to see this...

11 year old boy helping 5 year old sister drive a race (without be forced to)

equally astonished to see the size of the ice cream that the kids won while playing one of the games

and finally texted this picture to daddy...

and told him we pierced Emma's ears....

I'm just a little evil like that...

Now there are 113 school days left until summer.