On backs and braces...or maybe backs needing braces?

What a week!!!! As you may have noticed there were a few days of blog absence on my part and the reasons went from delightful to frightful! So, as the saga deepens, Julia and Mari now had two different spring breaks due to the sudden school change and Auntie Peggy had taken Mari off to the Dells for the 'public school' break. This left the 'private school' crowd clamoring for fair play so being the marshmallows that we are off to Lake Geneva we escaped. As we drove up to our water park adventure notice the field next to the hotel!! Yep, Julia just seems to have this horse karma! Unfortunately for her I do NOT have any positive karma to speak of and the tantalizingly close horseback riding did not come to fruition! Seems that I was meant to have a bonding experience with Rhonda. Not that I don't want to bond with Rhonda but I could picture several far superior ways in which to accomplish the act! So what am I talking about, you ask????

Poor Julia, this is as close as she got to the horses and the picture is thanks to her doll of a cousin, Mairead!!! You see I was busy laying in the back of the minivan screaming in pain....cursing actually....words little girls should not be hearing and that is why they were sent to pet horses! As our trip was ending, as we dried off and dressed from the last dip in the pool, as I bent to pull on my pant leg....oh the memory is too painful...literally painful!!!!!!!!!! The searing pain as something in my lumbar region tore or ruptured is literally indescribable. Rhonda, you need not try and explain ever again....I GET IT!

So here I am 2+ hours away from home as the only adult travelling with 3 children under 12 with waaaaay too little Motrin in the purse. What's a woman to do? Yep, what every woman does!! I sucked it up HARD and eeeeeased into the driver's seat and headed for home. I told the little ladies to put on their head phones and turn their music up because the torrent of tears and cuss words was the only way I could propel myself forward. Mairead was a STAR as she played personal assistant. She calmed the little girls as she placed cell phone calls to family back home giving them a heads up on my situation. Mercifully I made it safely! Of course I was now completely crippled after sitting for two hours letting the damage become over inflamed and ended up crawling from the van into the house. My computer is located down stairs so there was no way I could get to it for a couple of days. I only just, with the help of a cane, can make it down as of tonight but don't expect I'll try again for another day or two :)! I'm having a serious case of envy over Rhonda's custom back brace.....just not her surgical complications!!!

So speaking of braces....

Today was the BIG day for Mari! Here, thanks to Auntie Peggy, is a 'before' shot.

Dr. Mike and I soooo did that annoying chatting 'above' the patient thing! Mari's used to dental speak and just chilled as the hardware was installed. I'm sooooo having a talk with our procurement office about his 'pony tail' head rests!!!!!!!!!

Hah, now she can't talk! Gotta make a note to invest in one of these for 'home use' :)!

"C'mon Mom! Do you need to have a picture of everything?" Yep! Even the etching step because you never know when I might be able to use this for blackmail :)!

Definitely using this picture already! See that thumb's up sign? Well it took less than an hour before the groaning and moaning began so I get to remind her how much SHE WANTED to get going on those braces. Shhh, but I did have some Gogurt in stock in anticipation.

So minimal in comparison to the 'old days'! ....and yet so mind boggling....how do we really wrap our brains around the disparity between her life's trajectory and that of her many siblings in Guatemala? How superficial to want her teeth optimally aligned while her parents and siblings struggle to find clean drinking water and sufficient food! Got to get the back healed so I can get back into the salt mine and make more outfits to sell so that the monthly food baskets can be delivered to the birth family!!!!!!!!