wisdom teeth, not funny- but my best laughing fit of all time

 Allow me to set the scene for you . . . I am writing this in the middle of the night on the 27^th  -I guess technically it is the 28^th.  I ate a really late lunch because I was trapped in the oral surgeon’s waiting room a good chunk of the day.  Tank AND Mini had their wisdom teeth out today.  The doc office called my house to let us know that we should come at 10:30 instead of 10 because they were running late.  Mini’s surgery was AFTER Tank’s, so we didn’t get home until ALMOST 3:00 in the afternoon.  I did not think to grab food and the elusive protein bar I keep in my bag for emergencies was, well, elusive ‘cause it wasn’t in my damn bag. 

In addition to my forced hunger sit-in, I was subjected to a couple of ladies in their early 60’s who arrived at the office all ready for a little afternoon of ‘Since-you-agreed-to-drive-me-here-for-my-procedure-I’ll-tell-you-in-great-detail-about-my-grown-children-and-who-is-addicted-to-what-drug-and-whose-boyfriend-might-turn-out-to-be-a-wife-beater-and-how-I-refuse-to-allow-my-grandkid-to-control-me-and-other-dark-and-annoying-secrets-about-our-messed-up-clan’ in as loud a voice as they could muster.  I suspected the fish wanted to hurl themselves to an untimely death by flipping let’s-save-Dorie-style onto the floor of the over-the-top-decorated-Puritan-themed waiting room.  I cannot make this up.  I whipped my head in the woman’s direction and gave her a save-it-for-your-therapist’s-office look, but she didn’t take the bait.  Shock.   

'I can't feel my mouth,'
Mini's attempt to eat oatmeal.

I have been trying a new thing where I eat dinner as close to 5:00 as I can, and then not another morsel of food till morning.  Without getting gross, my body does not always allow me to sleep if food is in my system.  Good times.  The doc just says it is IBS.  I don't think that is what I have, but whatever.  This early dinner plan works well for me, but it is not always practical.  

Well, a late salad (AFTER racing to the pharmacy for drugs and administering said drugs to kids who had to eat something first but couldn’t feel their faces – well, Mini couldn’t, meant I ate LUNCH terribly late, like close to 4) led to a slightly late dinner where I stress-ate a bigger plate of leftovers than I needed to, ‘cause hello – recent salad, but hello so many leftovers that need to be eaten.  Now my insides are anything but happy. 

It wasn't pretty. 
She could not grasp
 that half of it was
on her chin.

Add to that the fact that Coach kept getting out of bed tonight and leaving the room, then coming back to bed.  Then repeating the same thing for what felt like 10 times.  This is a signal of college kids (this was Eddie, not Laddie) stumbling around downstairs after a night of too much fun with friends and I try to ignore whatever is alarming him thinking ‘he’s got this’, but since my gut was shouting at me anyway I decided to take some Tums, chug a couple gallons of water, and describe my day to you. 

I have already decided to postpone the remainder of the Ding-Dong-Ping-Pong table that got a tad sappy at the end, and share this with you on my birthday.  It’s my birthday gift to you, and I hope you like hyphens since it seems I am trying to win a hyphen-insertion award of some kind. 

I got an early gift this evening in the form of a laughing fit, the likes of which I do not know that I have EVER encountered.  And I thought I would share it while my stomach still hurts from laughing.  (Separate pain than the cluster-eating, over-doing-it pain I have in my gut right now). 

Much of today was not funny.  I think I needed to laugh.  Hard.  So when I got a chuckle out of the remarks from my pain-management patients, I allowed it to rumble until it was simply out of control.  The bummer here is that I do not anticipate you will find my hysterics as humorous as I did.  If you do, bonus.  I have already scolded my puffy-faced friends for not capturing my own laughing-gas moment with their phones, because the other family members missed it and it was something to behold.

Coach and Ed were invited to our friends’ house tonight.  Coach’s buddy – we will call him Buddy – is Ed’s good friend’s dad.  Because Buddy is very much still a kid himself, his own kids have never called him ‘dad.’  They call him ‘Buddy’ like everyone else.  

Buddy is one of the most social people I have ever met.  He would host people at his home every night if his wife would allow it.  Turns out, as my luck would have it, Buddy’s wife is an introvert.  She will entertain, but more often than not, Buddy will host the guys to watch a game and she will not agree to include the wives.  That was the situation tonight.  

Coach enjoys Buddy’s company and I enjoy the wife’s company . . . . when I am included.  That Seinfeld episode does not lie - it is hard to find a couple that you both like to spend time with, so it does bum me out that she is missing the socializing chip.  Ironically, Coach tends to be a bit more content to avoid social settings.  He is not always up to hang out with Buddy when Buddy texts and suggests they meet out for a drink.  Whereas I am usually ready to get out and be social.  Granted I spend my days with tots and Coach TALKS with patients all day long which pushes him to the edge at times. 

After Coach left, Tank happened to glance at the instruction sheet from the doc.  It said a good first meal suggestion is a shake.  Tank and Mini felt robbed.  They begged me to go out and get them a shake.  I invited them to eat the ice cream in the freezer.  Same difference!  Meanwhile I texted Coach to let him know that anarchy had ensued over a missed shake opportunity, but I assured him that he should have a great time with Buddy and not to fear for my well being.  

Curly is sleeping over at a friend’s house –was at a different friend’s house sleeping over last night.  I envy her as she escaped the drool-face, blood-spitting theme that we had going on over here today.  Last night she (and Reg and Mini) missed the:  this-is-our-house-follow-our-rules drama that ensued between Coach and I and Lad.  That ended with a little ‘I will never speak to you again once I leave here to go back to school in early January.  I mean it -NEVER’ talk.  This stemmed from a sneak-out-of-the-house late Christmas night situation but ballooned from there into an array of confused topics.  

I will leave that long story at that, but know that the finger-pointing about his childhood (same delightful childhood the other 5 kids rave about by the way) and how I managed to ruin his break because I was not ‘happy-go-lucky’ enough for him (he actually used those words) when I was busy racing around to get things done (and he was busy playing Xbox for hours and working out for hours and requesting the car be available for him but then sleeping till noon while we all jumped thru the only-one-car-available-for-us hoops) ruined his break and other confusing, hurtful tidbits (while Coach is accused of nothing since he was always at work when I was busier than busy with the gang at home) led to me sobbing in my car as I left Tank for his surgery and drove 40 minutes round trip to collect Mini for her surgery.  

Lest you think my stress eating was centered on the temporary discomfort of two teens drooling their food on my island and begging for more pain pills.  That was a cakewalk compared to the Lad shit.

Anyway, Lad hung out in the basement in an attempt to steer clear, I guess.  That left Tank, Mini, and Reg and I to watch a movie.  Tank chose ‘The Devil’s Own,’ which I had not seen in years. 

compliments of pintrest.  This is what I
 was picturing, so maybe
I didn't make it up.

After the movie, the night was still young.  Reg went to play Xbox in Lad’s ‘Lad-cave’ and I finally remembered to text my brother a happy birthday message.  I included a photo of the two extraction victims.  Pat texted back:  ‘Tank too?’  (Evidence that he does not read my Christmas poem because the last lines mention the upcoming wisdom teeth pulling of both kids).  I texted back ‘Yep, it set us back close to $7,000.’  

Ice packs, swollen faces, pain meds, good times.

Fingers crossed that insurance will reimburse for some of it.  (And for that amount of dough you would have thought they would have included a truckload of gauze, but they skimped on it which had Mini in an all-out panic till her mouth finally stopped bleeding after we had scraped together some gauze left over from Ed’s wisdom teeth extraction in July.  Yes, 2019 was a real kick in the pants over here, or maybe that should be kick in the gums). 

Mini and Tank were up moving around doing their best imitation of Ebenezer Scrooge when he had that toothache (or did he just sleep like that?  What am I thinking of?) and he had a white cloth tied around his head.  They have a Velcro ice pack that they stuck in the freezer for 30 minutes and then wore it for 30 minutes. 

In order for them to have more pain pills I insisted that they eat a bit more.  Mini was ingesting like her 15^th pieorgie.  I made these for the kids when they were really small, but Mini does not remember them.  Today she fell hard and fast in love with them, but could NOT remember what to call them.  She mumbled things like:  ‘Can I have another Patagonia?’  ‘Will you make more peleogosists?’  ‘Is it OK for me to eat even more papaorias?’ 

I wish I could remember all of the comments Tank made as his pain was never as bad as hers.  Coach and I both assumed it would be just the opposite.  Mini remembers waking up a bit during the procedure.  Kid you not – I woke up during my extraction 20 plus years ago, and saw the doc using all of his weight to break apart the damn teeth in my mouth till they pumped some additional sedative in me.  I think hers were harder to extract than Tank’s thus more pain.

Tank did say this:  Gosh, like I was totally out of it.  They could have hit me in the face while I was out and I never would have known it.

Me:  We asked them to do that, but they said they would charge extra for it.

Once when Mini was really struggling, Tank was like ‘Yeah, you have four huge holes in the back of your mouth.  It is gonna bleed.  Now shut up.’

Oh, and he called out JUST AS SHE WAS TRYING TO SWALLOW A HORSE PILL:  ‘Wait, is she still unable to swallow a pill?’ 

Mini (like her mother before her) had a real issue swallowing pills and used to have to get antibiotics in liquid form, but she has gotten better (and I am fine now too, thanks for asking).  Mini proceeded to choke on the pill once he focused on her past ‘issue’.  She eventually got it down, but then had that awful pill taste in her mouth since it took a couple of swallows.  I rushed over with some protein shake on a spoon to alleviate the after-taste.  She only drooled half of it on the counter.  Progress.

Then Pat texted me this gem:  ‘Why did they have them out?  Were they interfering with other teeth?’ 

I was a bit dumbfounded.  I almost texted back something along the lines of:  ‘No, purely cosmetic.’  Or, ‘No, we just thought it might be fun to watch them suffer.’  Like, huh?  Instead I texted back the truth:  ‘Recommended by dentist and the ortho.’ 

In the background, Mini sang in a sarcastic tone:  ‘Notre Dame edu-ca-tion!’

Tank:  ‘Like, what?  There is something wrong with him.’

I was lying on the couch with the mate-less socks that I was attempting to sort arranged all over my blanket.  It had been a long day, and I was asking the victims patients how many pieorgies were left and telling Tank he could eat the apple-puff pancake still in the fridge leftover from Christmas morning.  I couldn’t move.  My serving-them-stuff window had closed plus I was trapped by my unmatched socks dilemma. 

In response to Pat’s inquisitive text, Mini half-mumbled, half-hollered, “Yeah, well some of us believe in seeing the dentist for our teeth Mr. ‘I-never-had-braces-even-though-I-needed-them-because-it-might-interfere-with-my-flute-playing.’ “  

To jazz things up, Mini's raynaud's disease
 ramped up - I don't think the
 photo does it justice,
 but her hands literally turn
blue.  She looks like
 she could star in the next
Guardians of the Galaxy flick.

Pat relentlessly teased me for being tall when we were kids.  Eventually I figured out that I could whip back an insult like:  ‘OK, Bucky Beaver’ because he had some significant chompers.  They are still front and center, but hey – great flute player.  If you have any doubts about his musical abilities, I will hook you up with my folks who will gladly spout off about that and his many other impressive attributes.  (You follow me where I am going here?  My middle-child, glossed over self butted up against this I-do-no-wrong king.  He was even born 3 days shy of my 1^st b-day.  ‘A king has arrived’ who promptly bumped me off the baby throne PLUS first born son sort of phenomenon.)

All of a sudden it dawned on me in my on-the-couch-mode that I was no longer alone in my quest to stick up for myself as the glossed over, frumpy middle child.  I called out to my gimpy-mouthed teenagers:

‘I am just so happy to be raising a small army of people who will make fun of my siblings with me.  At last – reinforcements!’

But under her bandaid
was NOT blue.

I then started to laugh.  It turned into a cackle.  Then the kind of laughing where there is no sound.  I gasped for air, but the laughing would not release me from its firm grip.  My head was thrown back over the arm of the couch.  Tears streamed down my face while Tank and Mini started chortling along with me.  Their bursts of laughter were interrupted by moaning and begging me to stop.  Plus they were trying to eat more soft stuff like ‘paledonias’.   

Their pleas only made me laugh harder. 

‘It HURTS to laugh.  Stop it Mommy!  Ohh!  Bahhhh!!!  Eww!!  Haaaa!!  No –stop!’

I could not stop, though.  It just struck me as too damn funny.  Coach came home a bit later and I was all – Hope you had fun with Buddy.  We’ve been tearing it up over here with pain pills, a repeated DVD, laundry, ice-backs, pieorgies aka petunias and the longest laughing fit I have ever encountered.’ 

Tank and Mini begged me not to start up again.  Tempting, but I only giggled a little. 

I apologize for the length of this post, but it's my birthday and I'll post as long as I want to.  Ha.  I would love for my birthday to receive a record number of comments.  I invite you to share your goofy sibling story, or rough sleep issue, or wisdom teeth ordeal, or favorite soft food, or your best laughing fit, or your request that I either continue to write during all-nighters or NEVER write during a lack of sleep again.  I will read your comments while softly singing 'Happy Birthday to me.'  I hope to get some Z's now that it is 5 am and I have been awake since before 2 am.  Grrr.