Yes, Another Cranky Day

I have absolutely no, and I mean zero, patience today. None. Not a single bit.

Every little bit of cleaning I got done yesterday has been undone. Six, count them, six, loads of laundry, about half of which I had managed to fold has been trampled by kids who think it is funny to make me mad this way even though they are punished for it every time.

Every bit of food and drink I have provided has been thrown or spilled. I have heard "mom" every thirty seconds since I got up. The 16 month old has been hitting today, so the older two are screaming a lot and hitting too.

I put a sign on my front door that says my kids are sick and not to disturb because it is days like today when the neighbor boy and his grandmother will come asking to play. They never come on a day when my kids aren't screaming, my house is clean and everyone is dressed in something other than pajamas. I am not going to even bother getting out of my robe today, and yes I know it is almost lunchtime.

I'm mainly irritable because I am overtired and in pain almost from head to toe. Even 12 hours in bed for me only equates to about 5 hours of actual sleep. Every time something wakes me up it is another hour before I can go back to sleep, longer if I am awake because of a leg cramp or heartburn.

I had a bowl of cereal earlier. I don't know why I subject myself to that kind of pain. Every time I eat cereal and milk I have a severe toothache in the first bite that doesn't go away until I take the kind of painkillers that make me sleepy, and then it is just a dull throb until I eat or drink something again. Need another root canal, yes I do. What the dentists don't tell you when you go in for thousands of dollars of work is that you'll be back in a year when that tooth you got filled develops an abscess. They don't tell you that half the teeth you had work done on will need to be fixed again soon or that thanks to the teeth you had pulled the rest of your teeth have to work harder and thus decay faster.

If you haven't guessed, I have bad teeth. It goes all the way back to infancy and the photographic evidence I have that I was given Pepsi in my baby bottles. The first time I ever sat in a dentist's chair I was 17 years old and I was told I had significant decay in over half my teeth. I don't know what the point of going to that appointment even was because it isn't like anyone was going to pay for me to go back and get any of them fixed. No insurance anyway. My parents were strict about a lot of weird things like how many sandwiches we were allowed to eat in a day, but probably the strangest thing was that I am pretty sure all personal hygiene products had to be bought with my allowance. Regrettably I usually bought clothes or cosmetics and ignored the need for a toothbrush. My smile was falling apart, but it didn't hurt yet. Fast forward to the last five years or so when I've actually been fired from a job because I was bedridden from the pain. I got that lovely "We're letting you go," phone call when I was hopped up on painkillers and had a mouth full of gauze an hour after having my first extraction and pulpectomy. That hurt more thanks to the $700 cash it cost me.

In some ways you get used to a toothache, and the only time it really becomes unbearable is when you bite into something hot/cold/crunchy/hard/sticky and irritate an inflamed nerve. Which some days is basically every time you eat. Days like today make me wish I had all my teeth pulled, but then again who wants to be in dentures before the age of 30? I can't afford a root canal on every tooth, and there is certainly no way I could afford tooth implants. So what happens instead? I wind up making an emergency trip to the dentist when the pain becomes a constant and I beg them to pull the tooth because an extraction is the cheapest option even if it does cost me $400.

Bottom line, folks, is take care of your teeth. Buy your kids a toothbrush for goodness sake and force them to use it. Don't skip routine dental check-ups, they are much less money than root canals. Unless of course you want to know what it feels like to be in so much pain you are willing to shove the blade of an ice skate into your mouth to knock out the offending tooth. (Ever seen Castaway?)

So yeah, I'm cranky today. And tired. And pissed off in general with my past self for not buying a damn toothbrush.