This is Ben........
This is Megan......
Ben is going to be 18 years old in a couple of weeks......pretty good eh...except that developmentally Ben is about the same as your average 6 year old. When Ben first came to live with us when he was 2, his teeth were rotting in his mouth.....the dentist said he didn't have any enamel...poor prenatal nutrition...so at the age of 3, Ben had major dental surgery and ended up with a mouth full of silver teeth, which he kept til his permanent teeth came in . He also had to have several teeth systematically removed over the years so there would be plenty of room and he wouldn't require braces. So, you might say we have a lot of time and money invested in Ben's teeth....which brings me to the crux of my story....sugar...brown sugar. The policy has always been in our house that you didn't put sugar on cereal in the morning. (When you have special needs kids who are on medication, you really try to limit their caffeine, sugar and food colouring ingestion). A while back I purchased these cute little jars from the dollar store...they have little flip tops with metal fasteners (you probably know the kind I mean)....I thought....'I'll just put some white sugar in one and brown in the other...than I wont have to get the big containers out whenever I need a little sugar for something'.....so I did. In a short amount of time I found the containers empty! You guessed it...Ben was the culprit.....so now the jars sit empty....Ben was told ...'no more sugar on cereal'.......fast forward to this morning...usually Ben eats breakfast early, by himself...this morning Maya had to leave for school early so she was in there too....of course being the ever dutiful sister, only concerned with his well being...she had to tattle tail that Ben got the large container of brown sugar down and put some on his cereal......so...another talk with Ben.....the usual ...cavities, needles, pain, hurt....he looked very smugly at me......but it doesn't bother me...I didn't cry (when he had needle freezing for tooth removal).....so, tactic # 2....you see, I just drove him and Megan to the dentist yesterday, sat for two hours while they had their teeth checked and Megan also required sealant on her molars and then paid $332 !!!!!!
Of course, our insurance will reimburse (but I didn't tell Ben that....I also didn't tell him that that cost was for both of them)....I did tell Ben that if he was going to disregard my rule, and put his mouth in danger of not being healthy that he could start getting himself to the dentist, all on his own and that he could pay the bill! I was not going to use my valuable time to do it if he wasn't going to bother. Well, the smug look left his face pretty quickly!
Then we come to Megan......Megan needed a bath and shampoo this morning....Megan can not do these things properly on her own...Megan is 13, 14 in July...but developmentally, she`s about three. So, I have to help her....I was, and still am in a grumpy mood this morn...(too many things that I don`t want to spend my time doing on my list!)......so I went into the bathroom to help her...as I`m shampooing she asks me to shave her armpits....this is a new thing for her and she`s quite taken with it....well, quite frankly I didn`t feel like facing her armpits this morning...so, I said NO!!!! She says...`but it`s just a little hair`.......I replied,...`well, that maybe so, but...I refuse to have the highlight of my day being shaving your armpits!!!!!!!!! She looked at me, confused...a normal expression for her. I know, I know ...a little snarky, aren`t I .....well, we all have our days.....the trouble is that it`s only 8:42 am.
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