Random Thoughts on a Tuesday Afternoon

Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
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Lots of random things this afternoon.

1. Thank you to everyone who commented or emailed me expressing your condolences at the loss of my friend, Cody. His funeral was Friday (hence the reason for my long absence), and it was beautiful. I'll do a seperate post on Cody soon (I'm working through my grief, and I have so many great memories that I want to share).

2. My daughter lost her first tooth. Well, half of it anyway. When I picked her up from daycare on Thursday, she had a scrape on her chin (my husband says it looks like a goatee). She also had a band-aid covering a scrape on her knee.

Apparently, the two teachers had taken the kids for a walk. They have a rope that they stretch between the two of them, and the kids all hold onto the rope. Remember that these are all kids from 18 to 24 months old. I would pay good money to see these two teachers trying to get 8 kids to hold onto the rope. But, apparently, peer pressure kicks in and they do. They were walking along and then started marching. Well, the marching was getting a little fast (more like running), so the teachers were trying to calm and slow the kids down. Well, my graceful child fell (I'm guessing she tripped over her own two feet). The kid behind her fell on top of her. On a silly side note: I know that daycare cannot tell you what other children are involved in accidents or incidents (when the case is not an accident -- biting, for instance, in the case of my child), but the huge scrape across the forehead of another little boy in her class clued me into who tripped over my daughter. So, anyway, I signed the accident form and went home.

Friday night, after I had picked her up from daycare after the funeral, my mom was playing with my daughter, and she said very innocently, "Does she have one front tooth longer than the other?"

Me, angry/panicking, "No, why?!"

"Well..." At this point, I had snatched my daughter away from her, and had her over my lap prying her little baby lips apart to see her teeth. She was squirming and trying to get away from me (I can't imagine why!).

Yep, she lost at least half her tooth. I started crying, cursing daycare, threatening to sue (I'm not sure on what grounds because this could have happened just as easily at home as at daycare, but I wasn't really thinking rationally), and dreading telling my husband. I guess after the funeral, my reserve of strength was spent, and her broken tooth pushed me over the edge.

The really sad part: My first thought was that her pictures from now on are going to be screwed up. How awful am I! Worried about pictures. I smack myself just thinking about it.

The really good part: My husband's reaction.

Me: "[long explanation of what happened here], so.....she's got a broken tooth."

Him: "Mmm-hmm....can I call her 'Chip?'"

Me: Exasperated sigh/slight giggle (yes, that's really hard to pull off).

Him: "It was going to fall out eventually anyway. My sister did that when she was about Chip's age crawling around in a playground in the mall."

3. My husband was playing horsey with my daughter last night. You know, down on hands and knees with my daughter on his back. Well, at one point he stopped and laid down on the floor with her still on his back. She was slapping at his back trying to get him back up, and I said (foolishly), "You've got to kick him to get him to go."

Bad move. She got off of his back, went around to his arm, and kicked him! Twice. I was trying so hard not to laugh while telling her that we don't kick daddy (yeah, right after I told her that was how to get the horsey to go!).

A few minutes later, I was giving her a drink, and told her, "Chip, come get your milk!"

She got up from playing with her daddy on the floor and walked about 3 steps toward me. Then, she turned around, walked back to my husband, and kicked him a couple of times in the arm. Only then did she turn around to come get her milk. I was laughing too hard to punish her. It was so funny! I will obviously have to punish her if she keeps it up, but I just couldn't keep a straight face to do it! My husband wasn't much better.

Thank goodness this day is almost over. I have been so sleepy for the past couple of days, and my husband leaves in the morning for work, so I'll be up at 3:30. I better see who Oprah has as a guest. :)