Tales of a Square Peg

My BFF Amy emailed me the following message:

So Holly comes to my bedside this morning, wakes me up, and asks me why the tooth fairy didn't come last night. There goes my Mother Of The Year award....geez.

She's got three kids, ages 10, 9 and 7, so Amy gets a pass.  The Tooth Fairy's visited our house four times already; and we only have one child; so I can see where things might get a little tricky with three.....and expensive.  When GG lost her first tooth, I had no idea how much the Tooth Fairy should leave, but I thought 2 shiny new quarters would be cool.  Then I found out that the Tooth Fairy was being cheap, so we started leaving a dollar per tooth after that.

Which brings me back to my forgetful BFF Amy.  Read on...

So I remember the tooth the next night after Holly told me she didn't come. Feeling a bit guilty, I put $3 under her pillow thinking she'd be so wowed. Her reply was "Why did Molly get $10 for her tooth a few weeks ago?"

TEN DOLLARS? Is that the standard going rate for baby teeth these days?  Heck, we've been hoping that GG will save every Tooth Fairy dollar to help pay for braces when her permanent teeth come in.  And now I'm really confused:  On Monday, we found Charley's tiny little canine tooth on the carpet.  Apparently, puppies lose their baby teeth too; and it is rare for an owner to find them.  Lucky us.  I just wonder what the Tooth Fairy is supposed to do for puppies.

So fill Amy and me in -- how much does the Tooth Fairy leave your little one?  How much money is too much?  What did the Tooth Fairy leave for you when you were a kid?

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet…..”'

The Bard was right when he penned that.  And if I'm remembering sophomore year literature correctly, that whole thing was about Romeo and Juliet falling in love, and how only their love should have mattered, not their family names.

Beautiful, ain't it?

But what about love for little furry, feathery or scaly creatures?  You know -- the kind used for biology class dissection?  Would you change your name to help spare them the scalpel?  According to an article by the Associated Press, that's exactly what 19-year-old Jennifer Thornburg of Asheville, North Carolina did.  She's legally changed her name to a web address for one of PETA's home pages against animal cruelty.

But Rochelle, you say -- is that really a bad thing?  Think about it:  You're Jennifer's parents.  Nineteen years ago, you combed over every baby book to find a meaningful name.  Maybe you promised the now sainted Gramma that you'd name the baby after her.  Or you found out that you were finally having the baby girl you always dreamed of, and you painted her bedroom pink and outfitted it with a frilly canopy bed, and lovingly sprawled those wonderful girly block letters on her wall to spell J-E-N-N-I-F-E-R....

.....and now, after nineteen years, you must now refer to your darling daughter as CutoutDissection.com.  Actually, according to the article, she prefers Cutout.

During my wanna-be-a-hippie days, I would have thought that this was the coolest thing EVER.  Not so much anymore.  Responsible Parent things come to my mind -- at the very least, things like Where does the first name start and the last name begin?  Is the dot in dot com a middle name or a middle initial?  If she gets married, will she be Mrs. CutoutDissection.com-Smith?

I don't know, Cutout's probably the same old Jennifer; and my guess is that her parents probably understand Shakespeare's rose sentiment on a level that I'll never quite get to......unless GG's got plans to change her name someday too.

About two years ago, GG went through a "sensitive stage."  Certain songs like "It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" and "My Grown-up Christmas List" would leave her in tears every time they came on the radio.  Every time.  Needless to say, it was a really weepy Christmas that year.  When asked why she was crying, she'd answer through her tears "because it's a really sweet song."  Then there was that time in the car when she asked what I was thinking about; and I told her that I was thinking about how much I loved her.  I checked the rear-view mirror only to see tears streaming down her face and heard "that was a really sweet thing to say, mom."  You get the picture.  She was acutely sensitive back then, and to a certain extent, she still is.  I've often wondered which one of us passed that onto her.

Until last week.

Jamie and I donated GG's now-too-small clothes to the *Good Samaritan Outreach Center, a place that distributes clothing for free.  GG's clothes were packed in plastic tubs that I wanted to bring back home, so I unpacked while the volunteers sorted through the items.  There were people who were being helped by other volunteers that day, and some were waiting to be helped.  Among them was a mom with a little girl that was maybe a year younger than GG.  The sight of the two of them really hit me hard, and I started picking through the tub I was unpacking to see what would fit the little girl, what she might need in light of the changing weather, bypassed the sorters and handed some stuff directly to the mom.  When I got done, the mom simply said thank you, and I left.

I called Jamie right after that in a composed state, but when I started telling him about the little girl, I just lost it.  GG and I could've been the ones in need, but we've been blessed, that's all.  Anyway, my husband is a saint.  He waited patiently on the phone with me until my blubbering was over, and said that we'll be going back there with more stuff -- for adults and kids -- from now on.

*We found out about Good Samaritan by calling 2-1-1.  If you’re looking for a place within your ZIP code where you can contribute clothes or other items, just dial 2-1-1 from your home phone or 773-0211 from a cell or pay phone.