Joshua Zamrycki's Weblog

Emily, while practicing writing letters on a piece of paper:

Emily: Mummy, what’s the first letter of your name?

Jan: J.

Emily: (diligently writing) And what’s a different letter?

Jan: Um… L.

Emily: OK, and what’s a different letter?

Jan: P.

Emily: Now what’s a different letter?

Jan: O.

Emily: And a different letter?

Jan: M is a good one.

Emily: What’s another one?

Jan: R.

Emily: A different one?

Jan: W.

Emily: OK, I don’t want to write anymore. (looking at the paper) Wow… you have a really long name!

Emily’s big-girl bed has a lovely metal frame. She and Sebastian were jumping on the bed last week before bedtime when Emily decided that she needed to quickly bury her head in her pillow. So, after a few warm-up jumps to build up momentum, she spontaneously flung herself face-first towards her pillow. And missed. I was sitting on the floor next to the bed and all I heard was a wet and muffled crunch. Emily had enthusiastically met the thin metal bar with her top right front tooth. Just from the gruesome sound of the collision alone, I couldn’t bear to look at my little girl, who was now convulsing with agony. This, in turn, set off Sebastian crying. Jan ran into the room to find both children crying hysterically on the bed in a small pool of blood and me shielding my eyes while writhing in the fetal position on the floor. I just freaked out and couldn’t bring myself to look at the actual damage. I didn’t have to look to know it was bad.

When Emily finally spit the blood out of her mouth, we were able to see how her tooth was now tilting significantly inwards towards her tonsils. My first reaction was to try and push it back into place but Jan wasn’t letting me within 10 feet of Emily’s mouth if that was my plan. So we just calmed her down, cleaned her off, gave her some pain-relief medication, and put her to bed. A quick search on the information superhighway advised us to make a dentist appointment as soon as possible (very good advice!) and prepared us for one of three possible outcomes: 1) the dentist would push the tooth back into place, 2) just leave it alone and wait for it to eventually fall out along with all her other baby teeth, or 3) the tooth would have to be pulled.

To make a long and painful story short, the dentist said to just leave it alone. The tooth may change color in the coming weeks but there isn’t any reason to mess with it. The worst case scenario is that the cockeyed tooth somehow messes with the yet-to-surface adult tooth to follow, causing it to grow in crooked, but that is something that we won’t know until it actually happens. The result of all this is that our little girl’s angelic smile has been redneckified. Neither Jan nor I can stop staring at Emily’s mouth when she talks (or laughs or smiles). Much more noticeable than the pushed back tooth itself is the effect on the unmoved other front tooth, which now looks like it’s all alone and sticking out. I would post a photo, but I’m too ashamed.

So… Emily’s friend, Tess, celebrated her fourth birthday a few weeks ago and had a party in Parc de la Ciutadella. The theme was Princesses and Superheroes – every guest was supposed to dress up as either one or the other. Guess who the only parent was that made an effort.

Here’s a little note to all you budding cat burglars out there: we’ll be out of our house for most of the month of December. That’s right, we’ve just booked our December travel plans!

Our adventures begin just two days after we close The Snapping Turtle’s Lament when we’ll be flying to Florida on December 7. We’ll be splitting our time between my Nana’s house, my Mom’s, and my Dad’s. We’ll have two full weeks to soak up the winter sun in Miami and Tampa before we fly back to Barcelona on December 19. I hope we’ll be able to sort out our jet lag in 48 hours because we then fly to England on December 22. After our traditional Christmas with Jan’s parents and a few snowball fights, we fly back to Barcelona on December 28, just in time for New Year’s grapes and Cava in Catalunya.

Sebastian turns two in February so we might book another trip for Reyes at the beginning of January before we have to pay full fare for all four of us. Four full fare tickets from then on! Not cool.

So, anyone planning on being in the North Miami Beach area? Or Tampa? Or Outwell? Let’s set a play date!

While tucking Emily into bed tonight:

Me: You know, grandma and granddad are coming tonight.

Emily: I want to see them.

Me: They won’t be coming until late tonight. You’ll see them in the morning. We’ll have breakfast together.

Emily: I want grandma and granddad to come and pick me up from school tomorrow.

Me: They can do that.

Emily: Actually, I just want grandma to come.

Me: OK…

Emily: Because granddad is old. And grandma is not old.

Me: Well, they’re both a little old… Just like I’m a little old. And you’re a little old.

Emily: Yeah. I’m a little old. But they’re not old. Like four years old. They’re not four years old. They’re older.

Me: That’s right. They’re a little bit older. And granddad just doesn’t walk very well. That’s why grandma can come and pick you up from school.

Emily: And when you’re really old, you become a star in the sky.

Me: Yes, but only when you’re really really old.

Emily: Yeah. When you die. (thinking) When granddad dies, grandma will be all alone.

Me: Maybe. Or maybe she’ll live with someone else, like Auntie Sue or Auntie Liz. Or maybe she will live alone. We don’t know.

Emily: Or maybe she’ll get a new granddad.

Me: Yes, that sometimes happens, too. But we don’t have to worry about that because grandma and granddad are not really old and they’re just fine and they’ll be coming to our house tonight and we’ll see them in the morning and we’ll have breakfast with them.

Emily: (thinking… and then smiling) OK.