What. A. Day.

The agenda for today included a trip to the dentist for Peeper, for a quick cleaning and check-up. Her office is an hour and a half from us, but that was the only thing complicated about it.

That should have put us home with about an hour to spare for an appointment with Dr. T, either for both of us if we could get hold of Shrike's parents to watch Peeper, or maybe just for me. With a list of about five different topics to discuss. Nothing major, but things we'd like her input on.

Yeah, that's not exactly how it went.

It would have been a wonderfully simply "Look Moms, no cavities!" checkup, had the hygienist not knocked the cap off one of Peeper's front teeth when she was cleaning them!

(This is the woman who, last time, when she was trying to 'be cool' I guess, said, "My sister was 18 when I was born. That was almost like having two moms." Um yeah, and I had a really good tan once. That was almost like being black.)

She said that she thought she saw "a little bit of stuff" on it, but when she started to scrape it, the whole cap popped off. Evidently, what she saw was the edge of the cap. She tried to say that "Oh, it was just a bit of veneer, just a filling," but I knew damn well that tooth had a cap on it - it was the one we did on the second go-round at the hospital, because the filling on the front of it kept falling off.

Anyway, so that had to be repaired, obviously.

We could have gone back a different day (That was actually Shrike's vote, and given the outcome, perhaps she was right.) but I thought that since it's a 1.5 drive one-way, it made more sense to get it over with. Also, without the cap, it just left this little nubbin of a tooth there.

So, at 11:30 they told us to come back at 3:30 for the repair.

It just went down hill from there.

We asked what we could to do entertain her for 4 hours, and the receptionist told us about a kid's gym (Romp and Roll) right around the corner. We checked it out, and they were having open gym from 1:45 - 4. So, we got lunch and ice cream, and still had an hour or more to kill.

Someone directed us to a cool park, and as soon as we go there, Peeper peed her pants.

(She'd just gone, before we left Baskin Robbins!) Of COURSE our "back-up bag" still hasn't made it into the car after our trip to Texas (a MONTH ago), so I left Shrike and Peeper at the park and went looking for somewhere to buy her new pants!

In retrospect, we should've swallowed our pride (as if they didn't know the kid was running around in pee pants) and ask another parent where to get pants, before I left the park.

I finally got directed to a WalMart, and when I finally found it, it had Target next door (yay!) so I got her some black sweatpants (can't go wrong with those) and too-big socks (Where the hell were the toddler socks?!) and by the time I got back to the park and we got her changed, it was 3 pm, and she was crying about wanting to go to the gym.

Oh, and while I was gone, she peed again, so even the back-up bag wouldn't have even helped. So I felt somewhat better about that, in a way..

I called the dentist and pushed them back to 4, and we paid $7 for her to play for about 45 minutes. (It was super cool, and we might plan to stop there after appointments in the future, if the timing works out right.)

Then to the dentist, where Peeper was AMAZING and just lay absolutely still on me for 30 minute, while the dentist (whom we love) fixed her up and replaced the cap, chatting the whole time, about kids and stuff.

These photos are actually from the morning visit - that's the hygienist that you see to our right - but the repair visit in the afternoon looked about the same. Just imagine her mouth wide open the whole time, with the dentist's hands and some instruments in it, and the dentist's pregnant belly up against my shoulder.

Oh yeah, that. Our dentist has two daughters who will be two and four in early December - and she's 26 weeks pregnant with twins - two more girls!

(That was news to us, as of when I checked her Facebook page to get the name of the practice. Her profile pic is an ultrasound of twins, so we were debating "should we her ask about that?" but evidently the ultrasound is several weeks old - there's no need to ask, it's pretty obvious!)

I know that Peeper has (almost) always been a great little patient, but she really went above and beyond this time. She didn't even flinch; at times I almost even wondered if she was awake! I really couldn't believe how cooperative and compliant and patient she was about the whole thing, especially given that she knew that it was only happening because the hygienist had screwed up.

And, in case you're wondering, when they showed me the treatment plan before we left this morning, and it had an estimated $62.50 copay listed, you can damn well bet I told them, very nicely, that we did not expect to be paying that. The girl up front went back and talked to Dr. C about it, and came back and assured me that there would be no charge.

There was a part of me that wanted to present them with a bill for the lunch and ice cream and pants and gym, too, but I thought that might be pushing it a bit. I was just glad we didn't have to make a second trip over there.

When we were finished up at the dentist, we decided that Peeper definitely deserved some sort of a prize for her troubles - and for handling it so wonderfully - so we gave her the nutcracker that we had sneakily bought for her yesterday at the Nutcracker Tea. It was supposed to be a Christmas gift, and was still hiding in the back of the car, but we figured she'd earned it!

We finally got home around 6:30, after a stop at Sheetz to grab some "dinner," because we'd promised her Cheese Curls on the way home, since I wouldn't let her have any when we stopped there for breakfast on our way down this morning.

She'd napped about 45 minutes on the way home, so she was going strong. Me, not so much. I conked out in the bed, while "watching" them play "baby chicken" and Shrike, bless her heart, let me sleep and just brought Peeper in to nurse when she was finally worn out, around 10:30.

I would've just as soon gotten up and nursed her to sleep in her bed, but she was all set to sleep in ours, so there she is. Hopefully not peeing in it.

And, of course, now I'm wide awake.