The firefighter and I are going on a vacation in the spring! In honor of that awesome upcoming event, I decided it is time to whip my body into shape. Although, really, I have lots of shapes everywhere on my body… Stretch marks and varicose veins making squiggly shapes all over my legs, a muffin top shape hanging over my jeans, and cellulite making circle shapes on my thighs.

Those shapes suit me just fine in my arena. I mean my dress code is mom shorts, yoga pants, ill fitting jeans, and t-shirts. But my husband and I are going to relax on a beach, sipping umbrellad fruity drinks while wearing swimsuits. Meh, swimsuits. I could stuff myself into a swimsuit just fine except that we would be wearing them in the sunshine, not indoors during a blackout.

Well, I recognized my first order of business was to give up (please read the following in Gollum’s voice) my precious red velvet cupcakes. I knew I couldn’t do it alone. So I stopped using my Sensodyne toothpaste. I have CrAzY sensitive teeth. So sensitive that I went to the dentist last week to make sure I was just dealing with the usual sensitivity issues and there wasn’t anything more serious going on.

(Yes there are other things going on and I have to get stuff done tomorrow and I am not a big fan of metal tools and drills touching the inside of my mouth and no I do not want to talk about it.)

Instead I would like to talk about the things they really really felt I should consider. The things insurance, in their unsuperficial approach to client care, wouldn’t dream of covering. Apparently, behind a million dollar smile, is a million dollars missing from one’s wallet. I always felt I had a perfectly fine smile full of perfectly capable teeth. I have been smiling and eating food with these teeth for many years now. According to the dentist’s photographs, charts and computer screens, I am an idiot and should be ashamed of flashing these bad boys around town all these years. To make matters worse, the extra wideness of my offensive grin means they would have to correct a bunch of teeth they normally don’t even have to work on.

I’m looking up at that dude (the dentist) holding a mirror, with my jaw opened as wide as that machine could extend, wearing jeans that were distressed from crouching in the grass to tie shoes and from having stain remover scrubbed into them from three different babies numerous blow outs. I am wearing my glasses, because my eyes were too dry for contacts after spending most of the night up soothing sick babies. I am wearing a t-shirt Amelia puked on before I walked out the door, and my hair is in a ponytail because I haven’t had it cut in ages. I keep glancing at the time because baby girl is going to be ready to nurse again soon, while this man points out all the silly little defects that he could fix to make me have a beautiful smile.

Buddy, I would LOVE to have a picture perfect smile, but I think I’ll go on a second honeymoon instead.