Is This A Good Time?

Poor Hammerhead. He got his braces today.

I picked him up from the orthodontist and he was sweetly subdued, effortfully cheerful, trying to be brave.

I realized as we were driving home that three years ago, I'd picked his brother up from the same orthodontist when he got his braces, too, and he'd had the same stunned and plaintive demeanor. He was starving, and I made the mistake of taking him to a deli and buying him plain slices of turkey and cheese. I thought it would be soft enough for him to manage, but he couldn't chew them, and he got sad and frustrated, teary-eyed and silent.

Hammerhead was also starving today, so I took him straight to his favorite smoothie place and got him his favorite smoothie. He thanked me and sipped it on the way home, alternating his comments of how good it tasted with comments of appreciation for the "free" electric toothbrush his orthodontist had presented him.

Inspired by the abundant good will in the car, I decided to take it to the next level. In my opinion, nothing eases physical discomfort better than humor, so to distract Hammerhead from his pain, I asked him if he knew when a good time to go to the dentist was. He said, "No."

"Two-thirty," I said. "Get it? Tooth hurty?"

"Aunt Pillowhead," he groaned. "I'm not in the mood."

"Hammerhead," I said. "You're never in the mood for my hilarious jokes. And that is hard to live with."

"Your jokes are never hilarious," he said. "That's hard to live with, too. And oh my GOD! My mouth hurts so much! I just wish I would go into a coma for a week!"

"What a coincidence!" I said. "I also just wish you would go into a coma for a week!"

Hammerhead laughed in spite of himself.

What a funny thing, to be present and depended upon in such little landmark events in these boys' lives. And what an education I am getting. Along with learning what is best to feed stepsons whose mouths have recently been bound with steel, I think I'm also learning to not want more than what is there, to do my best with the little patch of land I have. Like those lovingly tended, tiny little gardens you sometimes see in front of barren, humble homes, or flowers that find a way to grow in the cracks of sidewalks--the point is not to wish for more beauty, but to create it where you can, even when you thought there was no room, or that it wouldn't make a difference.

Like buying smoothies and telling bad jokes on a ride home from the orthodontist, for example. For some reason, I think I'll remember it for a long time. I wonder if Hammerhead will, too.