5 Weeks and a Tooth

Today marks Week Number 5! that Shane has been gone. Hopefully he will be headed home in a week and a half. Some days have been more trying than others, but for the most part, the time has been flying by. I suppose that is one blessing of being busy. Being mom 24/7 without dad to help is challenging, with Sundays taking the prize each week. I've tried to simplify the "church stuff" but carrying the diaper bag, the church bag, the scriptures, the baby, and two girls flanking my sides, I still feel like a locomotive trying to weave and chug-a-lug through the halls. Maybe I need to look into hiring a pilot car, complete with sign OVERSIZED LOAD to warn people.

Shane says he is enjoying the work in Russia. The past two weekends they processed 12,000 more head of cows that were trucked in, doing 6,000 a weekend. The farms he was at processed half each time, so they did about 3,000 cows each week. The first 6,000 were cows shipped in from the US, the following week, the cows were from Australia. After being shipped across the ocean, they are loaded into "cattle trucks" as shown below, which are really shipping containers with squares cut out for air circulation. They were trucked for as long as 40-50 hours from the port, without stopping.

They can fit about 35 head on one truck. Do the math, and they unloaded about 80 trucks at their farm for about 48 hours without stopping to sleep. They sorted the sick, lame, or bad eye cows out and doctored them in the chutes. Then they were all sorted into pens of about 350.

The Australian cattle were hotter than the US cattle, meaning it took less for them to get riled up and chargey. Shane received his fair share of kicks and maulings.

The American Quarter horses finally reached the end of their quarantine period and can now be used on the farms. Shane has been riding them to get a feel for them, and then the gentlest ones are turned over to the Russians because most have never ridden a horse before. This leaves the more challenging ones for Shane to ride and use--not always with the most successful results. Maybe I will get some time in a round pen with some of them once I get there.

I think the company likes him and are confident in his abilities. They said wherever they think they are going to have the most problems, is where they will send Shane. I thought it was a good compliment. So far he has told me two words that he has learned on the job: horse and hay.

Shane said that it is easy to spend over 1000 rubles while doing his grocery shopping, but it is really only about $30 USD with the exchange rate being about 30 rubles to 1 USD. Most times he doesn't know what he is buying because he can't read any labels, but he does eat a lot of eggs, chicken, potatoes, and broccoli.

Things on the homefront are progressing slowly: breakfast, schoolwork, scriptures, lunch, naptime, playtime, dinner, storytime, bedtime, laundry, cleaning, taxes, packing, etc. Rinse and repeat. I don't feel like I have 5 weeks of progress to document, but I feel like I haven't stopped much either.

The hunt still continues for a GOOD renter for our house. I've come to the conclusion that I probably won't be completely satisfied with anyone who wants to rent our house, but I would like to feel like it was in good hands while we were gone, and that we would still have a decent house left once we got back. Is that really too much to ask?

Next item of business. The other morning, Rain started telling me her tooth was broken. Thinking about how horribly she grinds her teeth at night while she is sleeping, I thought that might have made her tooth sore. However, she continued to tell me throughout the day it was broken. After a cursory look at the culprit, front left tooth, I couldn't see much wrong and went on with my day. That night we were brushing, she said it hurt, so I stopped and really got a good look at it. Still nothing. Then I touched it and it wiggled. Ahhh, I thought, mommy milestone--my oldest child is losing her first tooth! But my mom told me it was a little too early for her to be losing a tooth, so the next day I made an appointment with her dentist. Their earliest opening was a week away. They thought it was a good idea to look at it just to be safe. That night when we were brushing again, I noticed a puffed up lump above that front tooth on the gumline. It looked infected. So, early in the morning I called to see if I could get her in for an emergency appointment, and away we went.

Rain loves her dentist. They have the cutest little western set in the waiting room, and a miniature door to the exam chairs. But the highlight is the miniature toilet and sink in the restrooms. The girls always ask to go potty multiple times while we are there so they can use the toilet that "just matches" their size.

After a quick x-ray, we could see the tooth was compromised and infected. It needed to come out. They said the sooner it came out, the sooner the infection could be cleared up and less damage would occur to the permanent tooth behind it. I don't know how it happened. I don't recall her hitting her face or tooth at all, let alone hard enough to kill her tooth. But she had (she says it was her little doodle pad), it bled internally, got infected, and then puffed out because the swelling had nowhere else to go.

Even with some laughing gas, Rain still screamed and struggled during that initial numbing shot. Mesa looked on with a mix of curiosity and horror. I should have taken her out of the exam room to play with some toys during this part as not to taint her thus-far-positive-perception of our "tooth doctor". But then a quick yank, or two in this case, and the tooth was out.

Rain has been very good at reminding me not to let her drink out of a straw because I am always inadvertently handing her drinks that have straws attached. She and Mesa have been fascinated with the process of putting a tooth under a pillow while they sleep and having it turn into money.
 
I'm ashamed to say the Tooth Fairy failed on the very first night of her career. I fell asleep on the couch after a late night of taxes, only to have Rain wake me up in the morning, disappointed that the Tooth Fairy never came. I told her maybe the Tooth Fairy thought she was in Russia with Daddy, so she couldn't find her, and that maybe she would find her again the next night. The next morning Rain woke me up early to tell me that the Tooth Fairy DID find her this time and left her some money. Whew! I hope Mesa doesn't get any ideas about losing a tooth early so hers will turn to money, too.