Dentist Karma

I have bad dentist karma. Really bad. I never go to the dentist and hear good news. I have more crowns than all the royal families in Europe put together. So making dentist appointments always fills me with a sense of dread.

I realize now that this has affected how I deal with my kids and the dentist. Mason has already had two cavities. The first time he had one filled, it looked like he was having an epileptic seizure and it took three of us to pin him down. The second time, they wisely doubled the dose of anti-anxiety drugs I could give him before he came in and within 5 minutes on the chair he was asleep.

The last visit we had, I don't think either of them had cavities, but Mason had x-rays done that showed he was missing (as in never-going-to-show-up-to-the-party kind of missing) his two lateral incisors. Those are the ones right next to your top front teeth. That will make for a really nice smile, don't you think? Luckily, he can have implants. ($$$$)

So even though I knew they needed dentist appointments, I couldn't bring myself to make them, and I realized it was because I was afraid of my bad dentist karma. Something always goes wrong. Once I figured that out, I knew my solution was to have Ryan take them, since he has much better karma than me.

It paid off, folks, because the brown spots on Katie and Mason's teeth were just stains, not cavities and Mason is only missing one tooth ($$ instead of $$$$). That never would have happened had I taken them. They would have both had cavities and they probably would have found something else wrong. It's all about karma.

Money Can Buy Happiness

Here are a couple of cute money-related events of the week. The first is that we have opened the Quinn Family Bank and Trust (QFBT). A friend of mine told me that she and her husband (an accounting PhD that we knew in Michigan) pay their children interest on the money they save. Mason and Katie get an allowance every week, which they have to use for any fun things they might want to buy. We give them $2 a week, half of which they get to keep for fun and half of which goes to tithing (10%) and savings (40%). So effectively, they get $1 a week.

Mason has been mentally spending his accumulated allowance on a hundred different things during the last couple of weeks. It drives me crazy, so I decided to turn all banking matters over to Ryan and an excel spreadsheet. He only pays 3% interest, though, where I had imagined more like 10% or so in order to encourage them to want to keep more in the bank.

Either way, it had the effect of getting the kids to want to save instead of spend. I'm not sure how long it's going to last, but they might as well learn early that it's better to be the one earning the interest instead of paying it. And for those of you who might be interested in investing in the QFBT, we'll be happy to take your money. No, we are not FDIC insured.

The second thing is that I love how when Mason and Katie are writing/sending cards to people who they feel bad for, they often enclose money. For instance, an older couple in our neighborhood had a wonderful standard poodle they would always walk. The poodle (and it's owner) loved to stop and let the kids pet him. The dog passed away a couple of months ago, and the letter Mason wrote to the owner was "I'm sorry your dog passed away. Here's 17 cents."

Tonight when we got home from church, I was feeling pretty lousy. I'm not sure if I caught something from Katie, who had thrown up the day before, or if it was just a combination of fasting plus a splitting headache plus taking medicine on an empty stomach plus 12 8-year-olds during primary with no one to help out. Either way, by the time I got home I threw up what there was in my stomach and then went and sletp for almost 3 hours. I awoke to a sweet card from Katie with a little attachment that has some coins in it. I haven't opened it yet, so I'm not sure how much I've made off of being sick. But I just love how they both somehow have decided that sacrificing some of their hard-earned cash is a way to show their empathy.