Fredegar had his first dental appointment yesterday. It was actually quite cute because he refused to open his mouth. The cute wasn’t the non-mouth opening, it was that typical baby confusion when confronted with something completely new. I never get tired of that. He didn’t fuss or complain, and the dental hygenist gave him a new toothbrush and tried very hard to get him to open, and he did for a few seconds under protest.
\nI watched him knowing what was going through his little mind. He was ticked off<\/u>. First I woke him up early (the appointment was at 8 AM), and he, like RoseyPosey and my husband are not morning people. So that annoyed him. Then he had these weird people trying to see his teeth. The situation looked a lot like when the vet tries to look at a dog’s teeth, and all you get is a glimpse of a canine and a gum because all the dog will allow is the vet to lift up his lip, and pull their head away.
\nBefore going into the office, I had to fill out all that fun paperwork, you know, medical history, insurance info, the really exciting stuff. Part of one of their many three-page questionnaires was “What is your ethnicity? (circle one)”. Then it went one to list races, not ethnicities: caucasian, hispanic, asian, native american, or black. I hate this question because I find it useless and devisive. I hate that they are too stupid to know the difference between a race and ethnicity, and I hate that after they have the nerve to ask, then they tell you to “circle one”. So according to them, I have to decide if my mother’s, or husband’s, or father’s blood is more important, and I have to do so to make them<\/i> more comfortable with what I am. If that is the case, then they should ask “What is your race?” and have one choice: “human”. Wow, imagine that, we will all pick the same thing! So, sometimes I pick “other”, but there is usually a disclosure that says if I refuse to pick, then whoever takes the paperwork will make a judgement on what I look like and pick for me, so I circled everything except “native american”.
\nThe next question was “what is your primary language?” Okay, I can see the fairness of this. There is a large Hispanic community here, the Amish community is not that far, so if they need a translator, this knowledge might be of some service. I chose English because that is the right answer. But the next question annoyed me again: “what is your secondary language?” How is this pertinent to my son’s dental care? It’s not. If I can communicate and understand “brush everyday and no fruit snacks” with ease, who cares? So I thought of writing “ecclesiastical Latin” in the “other” box, but decided against it because despite trying to teach it in our homeschool for years now and attending Latin mass, it just isn’t very good. So that would be a bit misleading. My husband was dissappointed that I didn’t.
\nNext are they going to ask “what kind of ethnic food do you like to eat,” and have the choices “curry and roti”, “beans and rice”, “lasagna” and I would write “pancakes, sausage and maple syrup” in the “other” category because although it seems like basic American food, it is ethnic American food. Trying to find a place that serves pancakes for breakfast in many other countries is like trying to find Pat Thai in the middle of the country roads of upstate NY.
\nI was just very grateful my husband was not with me so she could state the usual “your boyfriend can come in too” when she announced they were ready for Fredegar’s appointment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fredegar had his first dental appointment yesterday. It was actually quite cute because he refused to open his mouth. The cute wasn’t the non-mouth opening, it was that typical baby confusion when confronted with something completely new. I never get tired of that. He didn’t fuss or complain, and the dental hygenist gave him a… Continue reading I am moving to a deserted island where people can cease to annoy me<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pansyiana","category-racial-and-social-issues","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}