My love/hate relationship with my dentist

Carbocaine. The "pregnant" version of lidocaine, the numbing agent shot into your gums just before you go under the drill at the dentist's office.

Carbocaine is to lidocaine as tylenol is to ibuprofen. In other words, it doesn't work as well at its intended purpose, but for some reason, dentists feel like it's safer for pregnant women.

Last week, my dentist, Dr. Wilson, told me I had a new cavity in my wisdom tooth that needed a filling, as well as a leaking filling in a lower molar. I knew something was wrong for the sensitivity I had been having, and I was unwilling to wait 5 months until after the baby's birth to fix them, so I consented to two fillings at 8am on a Monday morning.

I mean!

If you are one of those people who hates Mondays, just remind yourself as you're sipping on your coffee every Monday morning that you could be drooling on yourself in the dentist's chair this morning, were God not so gracious to you.

Two applications of topical anesthesia goop, two shots of carbocaine, two shots of lidocaine, and lots of drilling. By the time he finished the first filling, the tingling sensation of feeling returning to my mouth concerned me, and sure enough, the drilling in the second tooth sent an uncomfortable shiver sensation through my spine. Dr. Wilson certainly obliged when I asked for another shot, but I think he finished the filling before the medicine made a difference.

Sadly, this meant I endured the apprehension of a possible zinger sensation, but become substantially numb at the grocery store after my appointment.

I do love dentists. I simply cannot live with the pain of cavities or abscesses, but I can't say that I enjoy my time in the chair.

Especially on a Monday.

New blog title?

I have been remiss in sharing the news with my blog community.

We're expecting.

Number 6.

(Not numbers 6 and 7! The first question people ask me is, "Are you sure it's not twins again?" And the second is, "Have you seen that show about the Duggars?" Listen, having six kids is nowhere NEAR having 19 kids and Counting!)

Still, I feel like this new addition mandates a blog title change. While yes, I did have five under five, in January, I will have six under age 8, which doesn't have the same ring to it.

I'm thinking:

"Not the Duggars."

Saja's got talent

Me: "Who wants grape juice?"
Saja: "I prefer water. I'm talented."
Me: (puzzled) "You're talented?"
Saja: "At spilling drinks, if you know what I mean."

Two minutes later, her ice water hit the floor... and the table... and the chair... and Saja's lap.

Thank God for good judgment in a six-year-old that helped me stay a little bit more sane today.

The one CSR who works the phones for Home Depot

So, we're remodeling a bathroom. It costs a lot, but we budgeted for it. I spent many hours selecting fixtures from Home Depot's website with the intention of going to the store and handling the items before ordering them online. Why, do you ask, would you order them online instead of buy them at the store? Good question, the answer to which is simple: the online prices regularly sat at $20 to $40 below the store cost, with free shipping to boot.

When I arrived at the store, I discovered they don't actually have all the items I picked out in stock. I should have anticipated this, since it's a common practice with all big box stores to carry more inventory online than in-store. I decided to simply browse the actual store, pick out new fixtures, and go home and order them online.

Bad idea. Turns out, Home Depot doesn't make it easy to find in-store items online. They have different names, different categories, and yes, even different model numbers for the same products. So the model numbers I hastily inscribed on my handy-dandy notebook in-store yielded no results in the search field. I accidentally discovered that some items might actually be available online when I accidentally clicked a link to browse shower heads and recognized the picture of the shower head I had picked out. The name under the picture was unfamiliar, but that was the one I wanted.

At least I hope so. I haven't actually received the order yet.

Well, after all that cumbersome effort to get the right price and the right product, I finally sat down, mid-afternoon, at the computer with the intention of completing the fixtures order for the remodel. Of course, when you need 30 minutes of distraction-free time, some kind of alarm goes off in the kids' heads and chaos ensues. I think I got up 15 times over the course of an hour to help Tyler "go potty," which I put in quotes because he never actually DID anything on the potty, but yes, he did go TO the potty.

By the end of it, I remembered that I was working on a laptop which did, in fact, also work in the bathroom, so I took it with me to watch Tyler sit on the toilet. He has mastered sitting on the toilet. That's why I will be thrilled with the new sitting area we have designed in our new bathroom, for the mom who has spent many hours each week watching a toddler sit on the toilet for the last 6 years of her life.

I pressed "Submit order" triumphantly after accruing a hefty total, but (and I pride myself on this) I scoured the Internet for a coupon and saved 10%. It just about covered sales tax.

Twenty minutes later, chaos ensued.

The credit card company called to say they had declined five charges from Home Improvement Warehouse based on suspicious activity. I told them I didn't know about Home Improvement Warehouse, but I did just make a hefty purchase from Home Depot. Is that what they meant? No, it just says Home Improvement Warehouse. And on it goes. I believe an hour passed, or maybe three hundred days for all the cumbersome mire we were wading through in the customer service arena, before they finally figured out that "Home Improvement Warehouse" was just a category, and yes, it might well be Home Depot. Why they broke it up into five charges is beyond me. I blame Home Depot for this whole insanity, because their weirdo accounting triggered suspicion in the credit card company. We told them we were remodeling a bathroom, and had in fact bought those items from Home Improvement Warehouse AKA Home Depot.

So then I called Home Depot and very kindly asked them to resubmit the charges because the credit card company has agreed to accept them next time they run through. After a very tiresome 10 minute conversation about why she can't do that, the customer service representative told me, "I don't mean to be rude, but you're just going to make things worse by running the charges again. It was already declined. I can't run it through again. You're going to have to make another order and cancel this one line-item." (Turns out, that wasn't entirely true.)

I replied, "Listen, I know a lot of this is automatic, but there has got to be a person or a department at Home Depot that manually handles problems like this. Can I talk to one of them?"

She said, "No ma'am, there's no one else."

What?! No one else works at Home Depot. This woman must be a superhero.

"You just need to be patient and see what happens over the next few days."

I said, "Thank you."

She then repeated her previous statement about making things worse not once but twice, to which I replied, "Thank you" each time, wishing I could just hang up without being rude.

So I hung up. And I was patient, which was hard, considering I was counting on "3-5 day delivery" and the items weren't even packaged up by day 3, much less shipped. The next day, I made the order again. I posted my 10% coupon and free shipping, and I also found those few lurking items that had alluded my notice the day before. So I was happy.

Then I clicked the "Live Chat" button to cancel the first order line-item, as instructed, even though it had already been declined. "Elizabeth" heard my story and set about cancelling. She then noticed that the items in the order were now routed, meaning they had been pulled from the warehouse and packaged.

I said, "That's funny because yesterday, they told me the credit card had been declined, and I would have to make another order."

She said, "Yes, I see in the notes here that you requested they resubmit the charges."

I replied, "I did. I was told that was not possible, and I would have to make another order."

She said, "I will proceed with the cancellation, but there's no guarantee it will work."

At least I can return the double-ordered items to any local Home Depot... she assured me (which I will have to do, according to the most recent automatic email I received from Home Depot). Of course, all the Home Depot assurances I've been getting lately don't make me confident. I imagine many more hours and miscommunications will be invested before this whole mess is over.

Maybe next time, I'll order from Lowe's... the other Home Improvement Warehouse. Oh boy, here we go again.

The middle child

Our oldest two children spent five days with friends this week, and I learned a lot about my middle child, David, who's currently 4.

I learned he can start a game on NickJr.com all by himself.

I learned he can navigate to the Braves baseball website and start watching video highlight or full-length games by himself.

I learned he can actually tell the score of a baseball game, and that he prefers to cheer for the "Not-Braves" team, just to tease his daddy.

I learned the sucker can read! READ, I tell you! Sounding out like a pro!

I learned he will sit for an hour doing puzzles or coloring scraps of paper without whining.

I learned he still likes to race the twins on little ride-on toys.

None of these things happen when the older, capable sisters are around, because why work when you don't have to? Why read when someone's always vying to read for you? Why race with little kids when you can be racing big kids? And forget starting a computer game by yourself when you have big sisters who beat you to the computer!

It's been enlightening and delightful, but I am glad to have the girls back. It will certainly be livelier!