Until this weekend my only (Jewish) New Year resolution was to do something about the pathetic state of affairs at our breakfast table. I can’t imagine there is anything nutritious about a box of processed cereal. It’s not that there aren’t other things I mean to do better, it’s just that I haven’t had much time to think of them. (I am also still working on last year’s resolutions. I have gotten rid of all my revolting, stained, stretched, misshapen pajamas, but haven’t managed to replace them with any sultrier.)
Now I can add to the list: avoid emergency dental visits. Tracking down an orthodontist in Hilton Head to make a retainer for Efram was one thing. (And each time a telemarketer calls the house asking for him because he’s signed up for another college course or a money-making scheme, I tell them that not only is he nine, but that he lost his blessed retainer one week after getting it.)
Over this weekend, which just so happened to be Rosh Hashana, Bennett decided to mix some jelly beans into a bowl of ice cream he was eating at someone’s house. He attacked that ice cream so voraciously that he went and cracked a tooth on a jellybean that had quickly frozen. I was, in my infinite knowledge of all things dental, certain that it was an adult tooth.
The dentist that we saw today, Sunday, assured me that it was not. As it was halfway out, she offered to pull it for him. Bennett, flatly refused, sure that somehow a needle was involved. She told him he had until Thursday to yank it out on his own, and then she’s going in.
The boys are a little disappointed that Riverdale is leafier than they’d imagined. “We thought we were moving to the city!” They cried. “This is the country!”
Yes, it’s all quite green, I told them. But I ran in Riverdale Park this morning and it smells like pee and skunk. I assure you, this is not the country.
Still, Bennett will not give up on his urban dream. As we were leaving the dentist’s office, he said to me: “If I crack an adult tooth next time, then can I have a gold one in its place?”