Snotty noses, Numb tongues, and How we Blew $2240 in one day.

Alex and I have been sharing a cold, which has been a wonderful bonding experience and all, but I do feel a little more privileged considering that I can blow, pick, and otherwise manipulate my nose and its contents at my will, while my little boy can't. Occasionally, either my wife or myself will take this suction ball thingy and suck out anything and everything out of the boy's nostril, making him incredibly mad and tortured - and probably confused why we're being so mean to him. So he's either really clogged up with all sorts of liquid congestion, or he's dried up from all the times we've manually vacuumed his head out. Today I found myself picking his nose a little in public, (not with my finger in his nostril - it's too small and it would hurt), because of the snot that has dried up and formed at the corners of his nose. I have to say that I do not usually pick other people's noses, but once you become a parent, it's a toss up whether you want to be seen picking his nose or judged as a bad parent because you didn't clean up the dried mucus.

But he's feeling better, thanks.

For the past few days, I have been plagued with horrendous pain - the likes of which I had only previously experienced once - when my balls hurt. I told my brother in confidence about my dilemma, which he promptly informed my mom gleefully, whom in turn wanted to look at them to see if they were okay. I declined, because if I didn't, I wouldn't be relaying this story on the internet. Oh, how they mocked my immaturity about how I didn't know that I was just going through puberty.

Anyway, coming back from the Tangent of Testicles, the aforementioned pain is that of my front right incisor tooth. For some reason, I woke up a few mornings ago and my tooth just ached. Whether or not my dreams I had the previous night had anything to do with it, I don't know.

I dreamt about battling vampires and losing badly - and repeatedly. Maybe I was grinding my teeth? Maybe I was turning into one? Who knows.

So I have been wincing and whining through these past few days, and yesterday I broke down and spent eight bucks on Orajel, not knowing if it worked. I applied some on the offending tooth, and then suspecting that my finger was perhaps not as sanitary as I'd hope, I used my ever skillful tongue and spread the gel on my gums and all over my tooth. Well, that turned out to be Not Very Intelligent because soonafter, the tip of my tongue got numb, and since I had swallowed some of the Gel, parts of my throat were numb as well. It's like suddenly having your mouth turn into useless cold slabs of lunchmeat - speech was totally impaired and my coworker was laughing at my impediment, which was okay - since it was temporary and not really a problem I have the rest of the time.

Then last night, my toothache was actually so bad that I woke up at 5 in absolute agony. The dentist thing didn't work out because everyone was booked and I wouldn't be able to see anyone till June. So I moped through the day with my cocktail of Listerine, Orajel, and Extra Strength Tylenol at 3 hour intervals. I've been a little hazy at times because of that, and I feel as if all my taste buds have been murdered by the alcoholic potency of Listerine. I'm telling you, the guy on the commercial who rinses with Listerine for 20 seconds must not have a tongue in his mouth. Either that or it's a stunt tongue.

And, the money. Our income tax refund arrived last night, and we were estatic. We've been waiting desperately for it, and I've been imagining all the things we could do with it. Fortunately, we've also said to each other, and therefore sealing the deal in the process, that we should be responsible and take care of bills first. Well. When all was said and done, we had about 33 bucks left, from the original 2240 bucks that was deposited into my account. And all of it went to bills and past dues, credit cards and borrowed money. It was a little sad because I was hoping that more of it went to paying off my wife's credit card, or even saving for a vacation. But nope, all of it went to stuff we had floating around out there. Like the remaining 500 dollar bill from Alex's delivery. Expensive little guy. And the stupid little bills from the checkups, ultrasounds, and bills we had to skip last month because it was bills or food. All said and done, there is a tremendous weight off our shoulders, I got two cheap video games out of it, JL got rechargable batteries, Alex got a humidifier, and Elaine got... Double Stuf Oreos. And more financial wiggle room in her bills. Yeah, it's not so much that we want to improve our credit to buy a house, we just hate being poor. It's depressing as hell. But now the fridge is full, we have toilet paper and paper towels again, and I can avoid Blockbuster's late fees for at least another month because I have two Playstation 2 games to keep me occupied.