Baby Teeth

Well, there is nothing as eewie as coming across a box of sandwich baggies full of baby teeth.




The Tooth-Fairy story was a part of my boys' childhood. It is one of those myths probably invented to take away the pain of losing a tooth ... a fun parenting ritual that most parents I know always take part in.

For a dollar I got to see the amazement and excitement in my kids' faces early in the morning. Lately, I have seen the Tooth Fairy get more generous, maybe she adjusts it according to the cost of living index. My great nephews are getting $5 a piece.

For a while Andrew and Brian totally bought into Her, writing Her notes and all.

Then when they got older, skepticism crept in. Accusations were made:

'YOU're the Tooth Fairy Mom!'

'Who ME?'



Which then led to their plot to prove Her non-existence, which was a success, when one day, Andrew announced:

'See, Mom? I lost a tooth yesterday and I put it under my pillow,
BUT, I didn't tell you,
and the Tooth Fairy didn't exchange it for a dollar.'

Busted!

Anyway, the teeth are going. I just don't feel sentimental over some bits of bone. I'll keep the locks of hair from their first haircuts.....

Books

My husband went through his book collection weeding out the books he no longer wanted and then limited himself to just one bookcase (down from 3) to house his favorites. He then pointed out all the books he no longer wanted and told me to go through them to see if there were any that I wanted to keep. The rest we'd get rid of.

Most of the books were purchased by my husband. He certainly has the zen of dejunking. I on the otherhand pick up the books, start looking through them, then wonder how much they cost and how much we could get from Amazon or Ebay for them. Of course, new books are pretty pricey, especially the hard cover ones. So I've wasted a lot of time looking them up on the internet, looking at methods of selling them. The truth is, I am too lazy to go through the whole process of trying to sell them on Amazon or Ebay. After weeks of going through the books, and hauling them off to the library or begging friends to help themselves, I have reached my saturation point. I told my husband I didn't want to go through the rest anymore. He had to just box them up and I would not look at them and experience any angst and we would cart them off to the library.

So, goodbye Joseph Campbell, Stephen Covey, Winston Churchill, Shakespeare, Dickens etc.
These people sure had a lot of words in their heads. Truthfully, they go above my head. I am unashamed to say that - I am not an intellectual. These books just have too many words. Can't they just say what they want to say in point form? Which led me to wonder, are intellectuals happier than non-intellectuals? Are philosophers too busy philosphizing to actually be happy? And what about all those Budhists and Taoists? Are they leading productive lives just sitting there meditating and teaching people to be disconnected? Why are there so many religions started by men? Obviously, I went through a lot of my husband's philosophy books.

Well, I'm sure the Friends of the Library will be happy to get the books and we will be happy patrons of the library.