Edgy

I always wanted to be one of those cool, edgy girls. You know, the ones with the cool ear piercings and funky hair. The ones who didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought of them.

I was not that girl.

I tried a few times, though. I got a fun piercing in the upper cartilage of my ear. Alas, my non-edginess mean it never healed and when I took the earring out to clean the almost-infected (is there such a thing as almost infected?) piercing, the stupid hole closed in the five minutes the earring was out.

So that was that.

When I was 28 I got a belly button piercing. It was so cool. I wasn’t even all that thin but I did it anyway. I was NEVER the type to wear a crop top and show off my piercing but knowing it was there made me feel a little cooler, a little edgier.

Again, though, my lack of cool kicked in when I took it out while in the bathroom in a bar called The Corner Pocket in Fremont, Indiana. Why did I do such a thing? Oh, well, that’s something I’m very much not proud of. My (ick) boyfriend at the time said something off-hand about not really liking the piercing and so…yeah. Not my strongest moment as an independent woman.

Eh, I’ve forgiven the 30 year old I once was. I mean, she was confused and sad and she’s come so far to be the woman I am now so…whatever. Can’t go back and tell her not to do that. Can’t go back and tell her that that dude was worthless. She had to learn those lessons and come out the other side.

If only she’d been edgier, right?

Science Homework Hell

*sigh* Yet another post about the nightmare that is 8th grade science homework.

I’m bored and I’m writing this shit.

The most current chapter was about Newton and his idiotic laws that don’t actually affect anyone (except that they kind of affect us all, you know, what with gravity and all) other than those who go into jobs where they have to figure out momentum and acceleration and force and all that bullshit.

You know what Olivia is not going to do with her life? She’s not going to be a crime scene investigator. She’s also probably not going to be an engineer of any kind. She’s never, NOT EVER, going to use the formula to figure out momentum. She’s just not.

Hell, I’m 51 years old, I work outside the home(have done so since I was 16, thank you very much) and I have never, NOT EVER, needed to use the formula to figure out momentum, which, by the way, is Newton’s third law, in case you were wondering.

I know. Who the hell cares? Not me, that’s for sure. And yet, there we were, for what felt like the 111th night in a row, doing science homework and figuring out momentum when all we knew was the force and the mass of something.

OMG. Please, someone tell me why a child with an IEP had to do this kind of homework. She got nothing out of it except to see her mother distraught and crying. It was ridiculous.

Each evening on my drive home, I’d tell myself that tonight it would be different. I wouldn’t internalize the difficulty of the homework. I wouldn’t let it get to me. I would just…do what we could and not let it ruin our evening.

And yet…there we were, trying to figure out the moment of something with a ridiculous formula that didn’t even make sense.

Let me remind you, I have a freaking bachelor’s degree from Indiana University. I am not stupid. Olivia is not stupid. But this homework…was impossible.

Earlier in this unit of 8th grade science, I sent Alyssa a snap telling her how sorry I was for when she was in 8th grade and she was going this homework on her own. I feel like I failed her because I didn’t know how hard her homework was. I never want her to have to tell her therapist, “My parents always said they never had to worry about me because my sister needed so much more help than I did. “ I mean, damn, there’s a guilt trip for you, right?

The night I cried, Lyss suggested I just google the answers. I replied that I TRIED to google them but each time I put in the question, the stupid sites would want me to log in to read the answers. It was as infuriating as the homework itself.

Finally, Thursday rolled around and I pulled into the driveway. I took a deep breath and readied myself for a stressful evening.

Olivia met me at the door to inform me that…there was no homework that night. She asked immediately if we could go to Gram’s.

I replied cheerfully, “No! We’re going to take a nap!”

I settled her on one end of the couch, myself at the other, our feet meeting in the middle. We each had our own blankets that also covered the other and fell asleep for an hour and a half. She read fan fiction on her phone while I snoozed.

And when I woke up Tom was cooking dinner. I know. The stars aligned, the angels sang and all was right in our little world for a few minutes (back on the guilt trip, I feel weird and guilty for writing that sentence knowing what’s happening in the world and especially in Ukraine right now. The horrors, the insanity, the evil that people (Putin) are capable of just feels suffocating and here I am bitching, whining, moaning about 8th grade science homework. What a self-centered little bitch I am.)

I Never Knew Teeth Could Be So Beautiful - Olivia Ordinary

After three years and four months, Olivia got her braces off on March 3. It was a big day for her. Not only were the braces that had abused her mouth for 3+ (THREE) years coming off, but she could finally chew gum and eat popcorn and Starburst and suckers. She could brush her teeth and not have to dig food out of the hardware in her mouth.

She could smile and see shining white teeth.

She was, obviously, ecstatic.

We all were.

And the cherry on this awesome sundae? Her sister happened to be home that evening when we got home from the orthodontist. Sure, said sister didn’t actually come home specifically to celebrate the loss of brace face. But we didn’t let that stop us from celebrating with KFC and root beer. Alyssa even let Olivia think she’d come home just for the occasion of the braces coming off.

I’m very proud of kind Lyss is to her sister.

Olivia took a lot of selfies that afternoon. She declared that her smile was now it’s very own filter. It was so bright and white. Her teeth are so straight.

She enjoyed the food, the attention, the selfies. She enjoyed running her tongue over her now-smooth teeth and asking everyone (me, Tom, Lyss, Gram, Pawp) to touch her teeth because they were so smooth and slimy (her word).

It was awesome; and gross, but mostly awesome.

I know this is a rite of passage. I know that everyone’s braces come off at some point but can I just say how glad I am that she got to have this moment? Some parents with kids with 5p- syndrome opt out of braces even though our kids tend to have some pretty serious orthodontic issues. I get why some do choose not to go the orthodontic route. It wasn’t easy.

I had to put her bands in for her for months. I am so, SO grateful to never have to put my fingers in her mouth ever again. Braces are painful and if a child isn’t able to comprehend why they’re being tortured. But with Olivia, she understood the point of the pain and was able to handle it.

And now that it’s over, I’m so glad we did it. She loves her new smile. She loves her teeth.

Just before she fell asleep the first night with her braces off, she said happily, “I never knew teeth could be so beautiful.”

That confidence, that feeling like she’s special and beautiful and perfect, you can’t put a price on that. Even though, in this case, we kind of can since this case of orthodontic treatment cost $6700. But it was worth every penny to hear her joy, her reverence as she beheld her new, perfect, braceless smile.