Twin Times

Recently Viva and Jake had similar, but separate experiences which prompted Kara to offer both of them incentives to be cooperative. It started with Viva who had to get a TB test. Kara felt bad that Viva had to get a shot and no one else in the household had to do likewise. I could totally relate to this experience. Three months before I graduated from high school the school district instituted a new ironclad rule that you had to have your shots up-to-date or you could not attend school. For some reason my shot records were missing. We speculated that because I was a twin some inept filer in the admin office thought my twin and I were the same person because our names were similar (Julia Ann and Jean Ann) and our birth date was the same, so they threw my shot records out. The end result was that I had to retake all my shots. I was livid needless to say and my twin thought it was the funniest thing ever. 

Viva was persecuted by the same school district that persecuted me about the same thing. But wait, this post was about Viva and Jake, not Viva and me. (Should I retitle the post and continue telling you about my and Viva's similarities? I would, but Kara insists the blog be about the children.) Back to Viva...the local school district demands that every child enrolled with it be tested for TB. This makes sense if you attend school with hundreds of other children who you could infect if you had TB, but since Viva doesn't leave home, it is a stupid rule. Kara tried reasoning with the staff at the charter school, but they are under the school district's big fat thumb, so we had to obey the rule. As Viva is the only one currently enrolled in ASD, she is the only one who had to take a TB test. We told her if she was a good sport about it, we would take her to the craft store and let her purchase some new supplies. She picked out two new rolls of Duck tape.

A few weeks later Jake was in a similar predicament. He went to the dentist and learned that it was not okay for his baby tooth to stay in place indefinitely. It was starting to cause problems for the permanent tooth which had been valiantly trying to push up for months. The baby tooth had to be pulled which necessitated Jake getting a shot of novacaine. Kara was not sure how Jake was going to react to this treatment. Earlier this year Jake was uncooperative with the dentist and at that time the dentist told Kara if he could not work with Jake, then Jake would have to go to a pediatric dentist. After a few pointed discussions, Jake became a model dental patient. However, with this new dental problem Kara worried that Jake might relapse. (Just like with Viva, I could totally relate to this experience, too! I HATE dental work. HATE, HATE, HATE it.)

As Kara had just successfully negotiated with Viva to take the sting out of her TB shot, Kara tried negotiating with Jake to get him to be zen about having a shot and then getting a tooth pulled. Jake was a good sport about pulling the tooth and he received a nerf gun. (Just in case you're wondering, the children do not get special rewards for every painful experience they go through. Sometimes they just have to tough it out.)