Tag Archives: braces

Braces and Broken Eggs

Posted on June 24, 2011 | 2 comments

Good morning Everyone!

We have made it to Friday, with an excellent chance of having Saturday tomorrow.  I know I am glad to get another week under my belt; what about you?

Kayla went back to the orthodontist yesterday.  The orthodontist decided that it was too early to put on the stronger, squared wire he had talked about putting in last time, so it looks like that will happen just before school starts.  She chose blue and green rubber bands this time. 

She told me as we walked out, in semi-tragic tones, that someone there told her she would have to wear her braces for another six months.  Since the original projection was that she would have them on for another nine months, that shouldn’t really have been a news flash for her.  When I reminded her of the fact that another six months would mean she was right on schedule, I got the flat “Oh” which is her way of admitting she made a mistake when she doesn’t want to admit she has made a mistake.  (I can’t imagine where she gets the trait of not wanting to admit she was wrrrr… wrrr…..  wrooonnn….!) 

  • Broken Eggs

When we were at Destin last week, we ate breakfast one day at one of our favorite restaurants, Another Broken Egg Cafe.  We have been friends with the Broken Egg Cafes for about ten years now, since the day when Mark and I  were searching for a spot to eat lunch at, and decided to stop at their original Destin restaurant (called Another Broken Egg Cafe.)  This restaurant is located in downtown Destin.  They serve breakfast and brunch only, and close at 2, but what they do serve is made exceptionally well.  It was the second restaurant in the chain, which originally opened in 1996 in Olde Mandeville, Louisiana.  Now, the restaurant has a total of 18 restaurants, each with an on-site owner, and plans to build several more.

Since our first visit ten years ago, there are at least two more Broken Egg Cafes in Destin, Florida, both called “Another Broken Egg Cafe.”  One is located in a building beside the Bayside Inn at Sandestin Resort, while the other is located at the Village of Baytowne Wharf at Sandestin Resort.  This trip, we ate at the Baytowne Wharf branch.  Because there was a bit of a wait,  Kayla wanted to use my camera, which I allowed only on the condition that she would let me take her picture first.  She wasn’t super thrilled with this arrangement, but she really wanted to use my camera, so finally she agreed. 

I really don't want this picture taken

After this first photo, she began to swing more into the picture posing mood, but then she got distracted.

What was that?

Finally we got a good picture:

Finally, a good shot!

Then I turned the camera over to Kayla.  I am only including one of her many pictures here, both for space and time reasons, and because she was extraordinarily gifted, and greatly enjoyed, taking pictures that showed Mark and I at less than our best!  Still, when she takes her time and thinks about her pictures, she can get some really good shots.  (This was not one of them, but I promised her I’d put at least one in!)

Kayla's picture of me

Soon after that, our number was called, and we sat down to a breakfast that gave us eggs, omelets, country potatoes and cheese grits (Kayla) to our hearts content! 

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in Travel, working mom

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Mondays and Water Piks

Posted on April 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

Good morning everyone!

We have made it back around to Monday again.  I hope everyone had a great weekend!

  • Mondays

I have to admit that I’m not that fond of Mondays.  It’s actually not the whole day I object to, but the getting up part.  Waking up on Monday after sleeping in on Saturday and Sunday is quite a shock to my system, especially since I am not a morning person.  (Apparently, from the whines and moans coming from Kayla’s room, it is a shock to her system also.)  The shock causes me to do weird and wonderful things, like looking for my glasses when I am already wearing them.  (I did that this morning; fortunately, it didn’t take me too long to figure it out!)  Until I began commuting to work about 9 years ago, I firmly believed that the thirteenth commandment was “Thou shalt not wake up before 6:00 a.m.”  Now I do it every Monday through Friday.  

  • The Fountain of Water Pik

As soon as Kayla got her braces, we went out and bought her a Water Pik to use.  The Water Pik shoots a jet of water into your mouth that is supposed to push anything out of your braces that is not supposed to be there.  I had one when I had braces as a child. 

Given the way it shoots out water, I think it must be the antecedent to the Jet Ski.  I can see some future engineer cleaning his or her braces with a Water Pik, then having a “Eureka” moment – “you know, this same action could be used to propel a vehicle through the water!”  Whoever he or she is, I hope they  made a lot of money off of the idea.

Kayla and her Water Pik very much have a forced marriage, as in her father and I have to force her to use the Water Pik every day.  Last night, I told her to use her Water Pik when she was getting ready for bed, and in a second or two I heard it switched on in the bathroom.  The only problem was that I had been in her bathroom earlier in the day, and I hadn’t seen any water in it then, and I hadn’t heard any water placed in it before it started running.  So we asked her to be sure it had water in it.  There was a pause in the bathroom, then the Water Pik started running again.  I still hadn’t heard any water put in the thing, so I got up to go check. 

There was water in it all right, or at least there had been before Kayla started using it.  When I walked in the bathroom, Kayla had her mouth full of water and the water had also just started squirting out through her nose like a fountain.  I don’t think it was intentional, because she and I started laughing about it at the same time.    I’m still not quite sure how she managed to do it; I used a Water Pik for 2 years as a teenager back in the Dark Ages, and never had that happen! 

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in On the Home Front, When things don't go as expected, working mom

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Cleaning, Petting the Dogs, The Longest Walk Revisited, Braces and Grammar

Posted on March 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

Isn’t it great to know that we have made it to another Friday?  Although we have nothing spectacular planned for this weekend, it’s nice –

excuse me while I go retrieve a handkerchief from Bad Dog, who just saw me looking at her and has decided to lie on the handkerchief and pretend that it’s not really there –

 to know that a chance to sleep in and have some additional family time is right around the corner! 

  • Cleaning

Our first activity of the weekend, however, will occur tonight when Miss Kayla gets to clean her bedroom and bathroom once we arrive home.  I don’t think she’s too happy with that itinerary, but it is necessary! 

  • Petting the Dogs

I got the chance last night to sit down with each of the dogs and pet them for a couple of minutes.  Darwin started it, really; I was going over to him to get him to stand up and go out for the last time before we went to bed, and he looked up at me from his dog bed, which is on one side of our fireplace in the den and his tail started wagging furiously.  Darwin’s dog bed is about two sizes too small for him – we have tried buying bigger beds, but he refuses to have anything to do with them – and it constantly amazes us that he can even fit in there!  So, when he started wagging his tail, rather than make him get up right away, I sat down by him and loved on him for a minute.  While I was doing that, Mandy looked up from the dog bed she was using on the other side of the fireplace with kind of a grumpy “Are you really going to wake me up now?” look, so I went over to her to pet her, too.  Petting Mandy is always a sweet experience; for all her foibles in the chewing and counter departments, she is a very loving dog and has the softest hair I have ever felt on a dog.  In my opinion, it is as soft as an angora cat’s hair would be, but less fluffy and infinitely less likely to send me into a sneezing fit!   Having petted the other two dogs, it just wouldn’t do, of course, to leave Tyra out, so I went over to her (she was on the couch, guarding “her man”, ie., Mark, from all comers except me) and stroked her for a while, too.  I got several tail thumps from her for that one.  It just was a sweet moment. 

  • The Longest Walk, Revisited

I was getting ready for bed last night, when my eyes fell upon the pair of shoes I had worn yesterday sitting by my bureau.  I thought about what I wrote yesterday, and decided it couldn’t be too hard to take them to the closet, so I went ahead and picked them up and carried them through the closet door – at which time I pitched them on the floor two inches from the shoe rack where they still remain, along with most of my other shoes.  Oh well, Rome wasn’t built in a day and two inches beats a whole room as a distance to conquer!

  • Kayla’s Braces

I was on the phone with my mom last night, and had just finished telling her that Kayla’s braces weren’t hurting her anymore, when screams started to erupt from her bathroom – the kind of screams that let you know that something is wrong.  I raced in there, got off the phone with my mom, and then got to play the “Stop screaming long enough to tell me what’s wrong” game – any mother will tell you that if you’re not frazzled when you first hear the screams, you will be by the time you finish playing twenty questions in between the screams.  I usually don’t make it to question 9 before my eyes start flashing and smoke starts coming out of my ears, because it is so frustrating to need to help and not be given any information about how to do so.  It turned out that a wire in the back of her mouth had poked into a very tender place in her cheek and stuck there.  It wasn’t in very deep, and we got it pulled out fairly quickly but there was quite some excitement for a minute or two!  After Mark got home, he insisted that Kayla put some wax on that wire, and put on the Canker-X medicine the doctor gave her, and that helped, too. 

  • Grammar

I have tried to use English correctly in these posts, but”lie” and “lay” defeat me – I have a 50/50 shot at it, but usually get it wrong.  So, if anyone knows, did Mandy “lay” on the handkerchief, or did she “lie” on the handkerchief, and is there a good way to remember the difference? 

Have a great weekend everyone and I will talk to you on Monday!

Nancy

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Posted in Pets, When things don't go as expected, working mom

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New Looks!

Posted on February 28, 2011 | 3 comments

Good morning everyone!  It is hard to believe that it is Monday already!  Our household, emboldened by the new looks of spring blooming forth across our state, spent the weekend in obtaining new looks themselves!

  • Kayla’s Braces
  • The most important new look, of course, was Kayla’s braces.  The people at Allen Orthodontics on Friday were just super with her, as they always are, and she has been a trooper about her mouth and the soreness that comes along with the first few days of braces.  Sunday we stopped for a minute, and she let me take two pictures of her with her braces. 

Because she said the sun hurt her eyes, we took a second picture, too.

  • Mom’s New Look
  • Then it was my turn.  I spent Saturday morning getting my hair colored, so Kayla wanted to take pictures of me with my new hair color on Sunday. 

Front:

Back:

Side:

Front Again:

  • The Escape’s New Look
  • We also had a trailer hitch put on the Escape on Saturday, so that we would have a way to pull a light trailer that could carry Mark’s scooter back and forth to the Suzuki place for servicing.

  • Spring!
  • While the most important new look in our house was Kayla’s braces, the most spectacular new looks are with the trees and flowers around us as spring approaches.  Here are some pictures of them:

A tulip tree in full bloom:

Close Up of the Tulip Tree:

  • Daffodils

Here are some daffodils that have grown wild on a hillside:

And here is a close-up of another group of daffodils that have just started a new clump across the street from the ones on the hill.  In a few years, they will have the ground covered!

The last new look in our household was Mark’s.  He originally intended to rest on his laurels with the truck, but a small “oopsie” by him, followed by a bigger “oopsie” by me led to an entirely new look for him also.  But that post will have to wait for another day!  So, COMING SOON:  The Accidental Haircut!

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The Best Part of President’s Day

Posted on February 22, 2011 | 2 comments

The excitement of yesterday afternoon having faded to the (relative) tranquillity of the morning, I can write about the fun part of yesterday.  Since it was President’s Day, which I can remember used to be Washington’s Birthday, Kayla was off from school, so I took the day off too, in part because she had to go to the orthodontist for a “records appointment.”  A records appointment is like the warm up act for the main concert – the people at Allen Orthodontics took x-rays and an impression of her mouth.  They are very nice there, and Kayla was a trooper.  I let her go back without me, because she seemed comfortable, and I heard her tell the technician that she was good listener, when she wanted to be, except at school.  Little comments like that managed to keep the entire office staff entertained throughout her visit.  Kayla asked a lot of questions, and most of them were very good.  Friday is the “main show” – they will put braces on her front teeth and a few in the back to help with the front work, but at least she will only have to have them on for about nine months.  She is very excited about getting to choose the colors in her rubber bands though, and was even more excited yesterday when she learned she gets to change colors every month!  Her first choice is orange and blue, to honor “the trees”; ie., the trees at Toomer’s Corner. 

When we finished at the orthodontist, I took her to Books A Million.  I wanted to buy her the Little House on the Prairie series, but let her look around in the children’s section for a while by herself.  When I caught back up to her, we had to open negotiations – she had picked out $90 worth of Lemony Snicket books, and I wanted to get the Little House on the Praire set.  We settled for the first three Lemony Snicket books and the Little House on the Prairie set, with a promise that when she finished reading those we would go back and get more Lemony Snicket books.  Her teacher read her the first book at school and she is wild to read more. 

After Books a Million, we met Mark at his work and went to lunch with him at Cracker Barrel.  I was amazed at the power of imagination in children;  without any other implements in hand, Kayla took the pegs that go in the triangle game that they have there, and the crayon box that comes with the children’s meal, and pretended that the pegs were people riding the bus (the crayon box) to go see a pyramid.  She even tucked one peg in the box to be the bus driver.  It was quite inventive.  Her manners to the waitress were impeccable, too; she even remembered “please ma’am” without having to be reminded at all!

After we dropped Mark back at work, Kayla and I went to a place in Opelika called Head Master’s, where I let her get her hair washed and blown dry, which is something my little princess always loves, and then as an extra special treat, I let her get a manicure next door at the Lee Spa Nails place.  She was transported with joy!  Nail polish is something she only gets on rare occasions and I let her get a little darker pink polish then she has ever been allowed before.  We even had a good ride home, without any arguments over the radio station.  (Sometimes she has a difficulty with the concept of the cockpit controls in the car being mine. You have to draw the line somewhere!)  Of couse, it was all too good to last, but how nice it was while it lasted.

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