Tardy for the Party

After writing this post about how I used my blanket as a turnakit, I started thinking about how I was really late to a lot of parties. And I don't mean actual parties, because I'm never late! I mean "the party", as in, I'm slow.

For instance, I played with Barbies until I was 13 years old. That doesn't sound that awful on paper, but let's not forget that 13 is only two years away from HIGH SCHOOL. Too late for dolls.

I also wasn't able to dive in a pool until I was about 12. Same goes for breathing while swimming, even in a stroke as simple as freestyle. I subsequently got a 3-foot tall trophy for "Most Improved" when I realized breathing after every other stroke made me less susceptible to drowning/dying, and diving hurt much less than belly flops.

Here's a good time to point out that if you set the bar very low, you can be rewarded with trophies only about 4 years after it's age appropriate.

I clearly had blankets until I was well into my teens, along with an awesome stuffed side kick named Mutsi. He was the best dog in all the land. Until I got married and he got forcibly put in a drawer. :( But as a compromise that I made with no one I purchased an adult blanket from Pottery Barn Kids that is the softest creation to ever touch my skin. A girls got to have a variety of companions!

Out of all that, however, my slowest and most stunting characteristic as a pre-adult was definitely my teeth!

I started this whole life off by grinding the ever-living shit out of my teeth, to the point where they were barely passable as baby Chiclets. Then I grew an extra tooth. Then one of my teeth suddenly turned grey. I want to say that this was from when I ran into my neighbors parked car, but I can't say for certain that it didn't just turn grey overnight.

After making myself fake braces out of gum and key chains for years, I decided I was finally ready to fix my slight underbite and K-9 fangs with real braces. I just needed to finish losing all of my teeth. So I waited. Then I waited somemore. Finally, I turned 15 and my teeth just weren not coming out. Sure, I'd lost a few naturally, but the big guys in the middle of each side just did not want to leave their over-crowded home.

I ended up having to have a lot of them pulled. I can't remember if it was 4 or 8, but I know it was enough that the lifeguard that I was mega obsessed with at the pool asked me if I'd been hit in the mouth with a baseball bat. Just what every 15 year old girl wants to hear from her crush.

When those sons of guns finally grew back I was able to get braces! ...And by that point I was 3 days shy of 16 years old. If I can find that license picture I will post it soon. In addition to wearing my hear in unexplainable Sacajawea braids, I am also the poster child for the most miserable person to ever exist.

I ended up celebrating my 16th Birthday with cuts on every other cm of my mouth, at a fondue restaurant where I couldn't even squeeze a cheese covered square of bread in my mouth. Oh the pain of braces!

I'll tell you another thing - I was CRAZY when I was 16. I think that metal went straight to my head. The combination of a naturally stubborn person, who is 16 and already insecure, plus braces and the sporadic use of alcohol in high school, makes for a very unprepared, unpleasant, borderline psychopath. But we all survived somehow.

I guess since I got my braces off (I still wear my retainers every night by the way...that is what the horror of braces at 16 will do to a girl), I haven't been that physically or emotionally stunted in anyway. But this is, of course, after I gave up on all sports and had no medically necessary reason for more dental work.

But damn if I wasn't tardy to some parties back in the day. I hope my kids are on track for all their crap when they grow up. But if they aren't, I'm sure they'll turn out just fine like I did. And if they have braces when they are 25 or wet the bed until they go to college, at least I can assure them that one day it will all be fun to look back on and laugh.