Dentist, Dinner & Dessert

Today was Taryn's last dental appt. in a four part series of appts. that involved saving 4 of her baby molars. Apparently when babies come early they might or might not have had time in the womb to develop enamel. That, along with the prescribed liquid diet of double strength formula for her whole first year probably combined to make for some pretty rotten teeth, literally. If we wanted to save them drastic measures needed to be taken. I have so much respect for that profession, it really is amazing what they can do almost painlessly nowadays. She just had more dental work done in the last three months than I've ever had in 39 years. Needless to say she is happy to be done. So happy that she colored him this beautiful picture to hang in his office. The Dr said that we should be very proud of how she handled these long appts. When we were in the car on the way home I told her that she deals with Drs. and pain better than most adults. She very nonchalantly answered under her breath, "Well I've had 4 stitches and my blood sucked out, so I guess I can handle this". Someone once told me that preemies can be characteristically stubborn and strong willed because they struggled early on. In our case, that was the understatement of the century. I can also now see that with direction you can make those qualities work for you and it makes a sort of resilience that can help you in life situations. Interesting to think about.

Well on to the fun stuff. After all that I came home and made a quick supper for those of us whose mouths weren't completely numb. I saw this recipe for Sloppy Joe's on Good Morning America today. It was this ladies twist on the recipe. It was so simple, ground turkey, a can of manwich and half a bag of broccoli slaw, which I completely pulverized so little eyes wouldn't see it. It worked famously. Paired with a blue-cheese and apple spinach salad this meal was complete in about 15 minutes. It was nice to eat a little lighter this evening and it offsets the Handel's ice cream I will be having tonight, wink, wink.