Shaving down.. a long day

Spent the day in the city again. Up at the crack of dawn and 2 hours on the road, the 4 of us, in time to get the Firefighter to his mma gym for his private lessons and the morning class. After we dropped him off the kids & I enjoyed breakfast at I-Hop and then headed to Target. We got our "shoppin-britches" on and found birthday gifts for five friends. We had fun pouring through the toy isles contemplating what each friend might like to receive. I found a row of classic toys and was lost in nostalgia for a bit. The original toy phone with its opening eyes and rotary dial, the sock monkey, the toy piano, the wind up radio that played Farmer in the Dell as little pictures floated across the screen.. they all brought back memories of my childhood. I also found Squinkies, erasers, journals, push-lead pencils, etc to fill my Treasure Chest for my classroom as well as cute little animal clocks and a magnetic calendar set for centers. I bought an adorable Corduroy bear for students to read the books to and a Barrel of Monkeys for inside recess. And that's just the beginning! The kids had to drag me out of the school stuff finally and get us back on task. (Is it normal for school supplies to be so exciting to a person?!) We all fought against the things we desired and refocused on who we were buying for instead. We had a good talk about managing spending and when we paid out using every bit of the cash I had in my wallet, the Superhero pointed out what a good job we'd done.
Next we picked up Daddy & they dropped me off at my doctor office. I got my new nice lady nurse which I was pleased about and it made the visit so much more bearable. When I mentioned the soreness after eating she took my splint and said she would "shave it down" for me so there'd be less getting in the way.  When I put it back in I couldn't believe the difference. She explained that my tongue had much more room now and I would be able to enunciate better as well.  She was right. Dr. Talley came in and we discussed what would be phase 2 of treatment- the weaning off stage. I won't get to that for another three months, but it's nice to know it's getting close. At that time we'll re-evalute and if I'm doing well I will begin the long, slow, methodical process of adjusting to being out of the splint in the daytime. I will still wear my night-time splint. If necessary, I will then be in phase 3 of orthodontics to change my bite to fit where my jaw joint can stay in place. All of this is overwhelming to think about so I try not to. Who wants to hear as an adult who spent 7 years of her young life in braces that she will have to be in them again?
Hours later we made it home and to our chiropractor. Now that I'm in a healed state with my tmj I can seek other treatments for the side effects of it like the neck and back pain from misalignments. I will now be doing weekly visits. This was so very extremely painful -another thing I don't really want to talk about.
We then decided to order pizza and watch the movie I chose from Netflix, The Neverending Story, a childhood favorite. I made it thru the movie before the muscle relaxer & Natural Calm ended the day for me.
Final thoughts:
So much packed into one day.
I'm so not looking forward to adjusting to not wearing the splint during the school year..
um, Ouch
I love my family :)