How many of you have had the joy of putting your child in braces??? My daughter just got hers on yesterday and what an experience that was! First of all, I probably could have titled this entry as “Mother Knows Best!!” because, time and again, that age old saying seems to prove true.

The day started out fairly well. The braces were due to be installed at 10. Gabi’s school is 25 minutes away from the dentist’s office so it didn’t make any sense to send her school. We stopped and had a hearty breakfast before the appointment because I knew from my own experience with braces that she wouldn’t feel much like eatting for the next couple of days. I dropped her off. I took off for my lunch meeting after the important decisions were made….silver or gold braces?? silver please…what color bands?….Gabi’s favorite colors, blue and green…cash, check, or charge?….

My husband picked her up with instructions to drop her back at home to spend the afternoon recuperating or nursing her sore mouth. When he was leaving the nurse said, “Why isn’t she going back to school? She won’t be sore until tomorrow.” Juan called me and I figured, okay, they’re the experts, right?? So Juan schleppes her the 25 miles (the other direction from his work) to school. Sure enough, an hour later I get a call, my daughter in tears, saying her mouth hurts. Doh! I knew it!! (See, mother knows best!) So, no problem…I run to pick her up. Of course, one of the brackets has already popped so instead of the 15 minutes back to the house, we travel back into town to get it fixed. Okay, an hour and a half later she’s safely deposited at home under the caring eyes of our neighbor.

Around 3:30 about an hour after I’ve finally gotten into the office to try to get something accomplished, my phone rings and, lo and behold, we have another popped bracket. I look at my calendar and I’m supposed to be in Ann Arbor for a meeting at 4:30, so I call hubby, who by now is fed up with driving and braces, as am I. Juan picks up our son from the child care center, grabs Gabi and heads back into town for another visit with the orthodontist. Fortunately, they check all the brackets this time and find another loose one as well. Whew! We’re finally done, and, a gallon of gas between the two of us later, we have a child with very cool green and blue braces!

Wow, does time really fly! I’ve had a busy couple of weeks since we returned from up north. We’re working with the pattern maker to get the fit samples produced and once we adjust them the patterns will be ready for production. Scott and I are heading to New York in a couple of weeks to go to Material World which is a fabric show. This should be a crazy, hectic time with a visit to a manufacturer and a look around the garment district, in addition to going to the show and trying to find all the American vendors mixed in with the ones from around the world!

We’re doing all the fun things like meeting with accountants, potential investors, and reporters! The Ann Arbor Business Review is doing an article on RealKidz for this weeks edition and I’ll be meeting with The Depot Town Rag and The Ann Arbor News in the next week or so as well. It’s fun and exciting.

Well, hopefully we’ll get our equipment in today so that we have reliable internet here in the office. We’ve been mooching off our neighbor’s wireless and they finally kicked us off so it was time. Anything to save a buck, ya know!

Just got back from a great time with my family “Up North” in Michigan. It’s always a mixed event coming home. I’m glad to be back but it was so nice to enjoy all the wonders northern Michigan has to offer. My parents, my aunt, my sister and brother-in-law and nephews have made the treck out (or back) to Northern Michigan from the west side of the country about every other year since we’ve lived here. We’ve made Crystal Mountain our base camp and explored from there.

This year after being scolded numerous times for not ever having visited the Mackinac (pronounced Mack-in-aw) area, Juan, I and the kids headed over there for a day and immediately fell in love. We definitely plan to go back and explore some more. Mackinac Island was everything we’d ever heard and the Upper Peninsula has a lot of great attractions we want to go back and check out.

Well, it’s back to work which is exciting because of what we expect to see happen here at RealKidz over the next month or so. I’ll do a separate post on that.

Time to look at the mail and get some work done and then I’ll be back!!

Keep It Real!

Merrill