Wisdom teeth are out now. Ride home was interesting. She cried and wanted her sister. Kid used a text to speech app on her phone to ‘talk’ to me. Lots of requests for milk shakes, fruit punch Hi-C drink from Rubio’s, and slushees on the way home. Said she didn’t remember how she got into the car. IV took 3 tries for it to take, so that part wasn’t very fun. Glad she was able to get this weekend off of work and I’m glad that she doesn’t have anything going on during the week this next week either.
Dentist said to use the oxycodone ‘sparingly,’ but honestly, I’m giving her 1 of them every 4 hr like it says on the prescription bottle because my kid is in pain. After a couple of days, she won’t need the oxycodone and just 800 mg of ibuprofen and regular tylenol will do the trick. She’s on antibiotics, too, like her sister was when she had her wisdom teeth removed. The prescription oral rinse starts tomorrow.
It’s an awful experience when the IV doesn’t work on the first try! Sounds like it was grueling all around for your D. Wishing her relief and quick healing
We had a couple of weeks last year where myself, H and C26 all had general anesthesia surgeries (wisdom teeth for C26, knee for hubby, dental bone graft for me) and I think I’m the only one who remembered getting into the car! Got H all the way home and he didn’t remember much between going into surgery and getting out the car at home lol. C26 was very out of it. It seemed pretty early to take their wisdom teeth out (they are a bit younger than most other ‘26s) but orthodontist first recommended it and we asked the dentist for a second opinion and they agreed - said it was clear that there wasn’t going to be space in their mouth and apparently the surgery is easier before the roots really take. I had my last wisdom tooth out in my 40s!! We all came home with oxy which kind of freaked us out a little tbh…. My H’s prescription included some narcan as a precaution They gave my H one before he came home which probably added to his spaced out feeling. We were all fine with one of the strong combination ibuprofen/tylenol tablets though. Hope your D recovers quickly. C26 had a miserable first day but was ok after that.
Mine were never taken out (I didn’t get a lot of medical care as a kid or as a teen) and although most just sat there, one of them apparently decided to start moving in my late 40s and finally surprised me by erupting through the gum when I hit 50… I now have an actual wisdom tooth
It’s our local Sister Cities program, the kids do 3 weeks in France with a host family, then their French counterpart flies back with them and spends 3 weeks with our family. My kid is having an absolute blast! The program reached out in March & asked if she’d like to participate again (she did it last summer) because they needed another American family. Only a handful of American students applied- way fewer than last year- and they turned away over 20 French kids who wanted to do it. I wish more kids would push out of their comfort zone and try these programs, they have been life-changing for our kids. My S23 just did a semester abroad and he spent the last week visiting with his French family from when he did this program in 2022.
Wisdom teeth removal is just awful!!! Hope the recovery is short and easy!
I really am hoping to get D26’s wisdom teeth out before she leaves for college- but they are not ready yet (not really sure what makes it ready or not?).
Our Summer is going pretty well so far.
Did a tour of Colorado School of Mines this last week (her #2 choice). D26 has plenty of engagement with this school- but they say they look at engagement as an admission factor- so wanted to make sure she is showing lots of interest . Plus, I had never gone on an official tour of the school- so it was nice/fun for me to get to see it all.
D26 has started her Common App essay. Has the topic and direction she wants it to take- now just brainstorming and getting thoughts onto paper to help shape it out. She is a pretty strong writer (and actually enjoys writing)- so I have hopes that this will not be an over stressful thing to get marked off of her to-do list.
She leaves for a month-long camp in Ireland in about 10 days- so spare time is being spent preparing for that trip.
Last night I had an interesting conversation with my D26. She was fortunate enough to get into a super selective summer program that she’s really excited about, and it started this week. Although she is thrilled about the learning opportunity and all the resources available, she is not feeling very comfortable socially right now.
Most other students either attend elite private HS or extremely competitive public HS (south bay area / Peninsula). They were talking about classes they had taken in HS, and other students teased D that she “must attend some kind of ghetto HS” because AP / Honors classes are limited, students don’t take Calc until senior year, etc.
Then they were talking about “dream schools” for college, and invariably these dream lists were limited to HYPSM + Johns Hopkins (this summer program focuses on biomedical research, so JHU comes up as a dream school for some). Someone asked D about her dream school and she replied that she didn’t have one, but was mainly targeting UCs… and the other students thought that was weird, because they considered something like UCB to be a “backup plan” (and in this crowd, D didn’t feel that she could admit that she really likes UC Davis)!
What really struck me was that she said in the context of her HS, she’s accustomed to feeling relatively privileged compared to many other students (our HS is the only public HS in our city and spans a really wide socioeconomic range). And sometimes she feels a little apologetic about her relative level of privilege! But in this summer program she feels like “the poor kid,” and this is a surprise and shock to her.
D said, “I wasn’t planning to apply to places like Stanford or MIT, but now I am feeling like I wouldn’t even want to”… and I had mixed feelings about that. We are a donut hole family and these schools are not within budget anyway, but I also don’t like the idea of D limiting herself in some other way because she feels socially out of place among kids like these.
I told my D that there are definitely many differences between her HS and these kids’ HS experiences… and this will be part of her learning experience for the summer! I’m hoping that she can get to know these other kids better as individuals, and not just be turned off by what she sees as elitism.
What the… I am so glad my kids aren’t at one of those schools. They’re probably envious that she got selected despite her apparently terrible school hope she manages to find her people there before it’s over.
I get to have lunch with D26 in an hour, in which I gently ask her how much help/nosiness she wants from me as we begin our descent into admissions season. This summer she’s taking a stats class, needs to prep for one more SAT, needs to at least start the brainstorming process for the Common App essay… and she’s taking senior-level piano testing exams next month (National Guild) which requires a ton of practice. Oh, and cross-country camp in August.
So I’ve gone easy on the nagging, but EVERYTHING I’ve read strongly, strongly recommends that students have at least a draft essay done by the end of summer. I feel like given my hundreds of hours of scouring CC, Reddit, and YouTube, I know a fair bit about how she should be preparing, but I am NOT a nag or a micromanager, so I am treading gently.
Also trying to decide whether we should work with an essay counselor. More fodder for lunch today.
Maybe it depends on the type of schools where a student is applying, but my S23 didn’t even start brainstorming his until the end of August! He sent in a few simple apps with a draft essay in early September (less selective schools where he wanted to get in an early or rolling app). Then he refined his essay and wrote supplementals for the more selective schools with November deadlines. He started working on the UC PIQs in probably mid-October. Note that if your D is seriously targeting UCs, the PIQs and UC activities list are very important; she shouldn’t treat them as afterthoughts or simply rehash her common app stuff, so it’s important to reserve time for them.
Ouch. I’m sorry your kiddo is dealing with such a tough crowd. It’s going to be quite the learning experience for her, indeed – hopefully she comes out with the mindset that perspective is everything, and that there are good/bad apples in every crowd.
We have a little bit of that going within our own family – my girls both attend(ed) an elite private school, the sort of place where families summer in Europe and spend spring breaks sailing in the Caribbean. Everyone has fancy cars and lake houses and beach houses, etc.
We are very comfortable financially, but not quite at that level.
My son has always been in private special Ed, but the last three years of his schooling were at our local public school. Because it’s an affluent area, there are plenty of wealthy kids (lots of Beemers and Mercedes in the parking lot) – but also lots of kids who aren’t. He had friends from all walks of life.
The AP/Honors thing is weird, though – my girls’ school limits APs because that’s just their philosophy. My D26 will have six total, plus one STEM seminar class that’s weighted like an AP. My S25 didn’t take AP classes, but it was common for kids at his public high school to take 12 to 14 or even more.
I’d say the quality of the education at both schools in the advanced classes was about the same – hit or miss depending on teachers, of course. But my D26 was doing far higher quality work in her honors and AP classes than S25 was doing in standard level classes a year ahead.
I am totally a nag and will micromanage as much as needed, LOL, with no guilt whatsoever.
I agree on the essay draft by end of summer. My D22 didn’t get the chance to do that, as she was in a strenuous summer program before senior year AND was doing an independent study (translating portions of the Vulgate and comparing them to the Greek) to get out of a required class she couldn’t fit in. Plus a whole lot of summer reading and assignments for AP Lit, and the essay just didn’t happen.
Boy did she regret it, though. Trying to pull it together in August/Sept – along with the millions of other supplementary essays – was rough.
So I’m going to sit on D26’s head until she writes hers this summer, LOL.
As mentioned, depends on the schools that the student is applying for and the expected time constraints that may happen during the first couple of months of the school year.
D26 has some outside activities that always take up much of her free time in August and September. So though none of her top school choices really need the ‘get things completed early’ urgency- she wants all the more time-consuming aspects (essays/personal statements…) type of things done ASAP just so she doesn’t have to stress during an already busy time for her.
My S20 did not start anything application related until at least September time frame and he was accepted into the schools he was going for. So - yes, it is advised to get started early- but things will be fine if not .
I wonder if the wisdom teeth removal advice is regional?
Here in the ATL burbs, every dentist will tell you that 90% of people don’t have room in their mouths for wisdom teeth. Sometimes they just don’t come in if that’s the case, but often they cause problems later.
So the prevailing wisdom seems to be to do it before a) they have a chance to mess up thousands of dollars worth of orthodontia, and b) while kids are still young and will heal more quickly, and c) before the teeth grow too close to the nerve, making it a more tricky surgery.
So all three of my kids had it done the summer they were 15 – and indeed, all three bounced back with two or three days, no issues. None of them needed anything more than Tylenol/Advil. So who knows if this is accurate, or if it’s a money grubbing thing – we’re clearly a sample size of one family, lol.
I had mine out after college when they started to poke through and cause problems. Glad this is behind us with the kids so it’s not an emergency situation during college.
That’s awesome!! Very similar. My daughter went over alone but was matched with a 15 year old French student (my daughter was also 15). They stayed a month with her family in France and then a month together here. Very cost effective too compared to some programs and it was a really amazing experience having an exchange student in our home. And four weeks was pretty quick compared to the rotary year long exchanges. We don’t meet too many people that have done them or know about them. She was a bit young at 15 but then it freed up her remaining summers and she’s been fluent since.
Our dentist said to wait until 17-18 for some reason, and that it was generally best to get it done just before college, so that is when S23 had his out. (Fortunately he had a very easy time of it.)
D26 doesn’t have any wisdom teeth! I guess she is more evolved than the rest of us
When my sister was in high school, she did a summer program at Harvard. Prior to that experience, she was turbo about attending Harvard. But after that summer program, she said, “No way.” She said that she felt like all of the other students there in that summer program were super intense, really turbo, too much bragging, and a lot of them came across to her as if they were just a couple of steps away from a nervous break down from the stress of getting into an Ivy League institution. She came out of that thinking, “These people are all nuts! I want to go to college with people who love to learn, but who are normal.” She ended up attending a UC school for college, went to Georgetown for law school. She said in law school, you could spot the Ivy Leaguers a mile away and said “They were just as intense and almost neurotic in grad school as they were in high school.”
Your kid is going through a great learning experience. That’s a really positive thing. And if, through this summer experience, she learns about what type of campus culture she does NOT want, then that’s a huge win in my opinion.
** edited to add **
those were/are my sister’s opinions. I am not saying that all students who attend an Ivy League college are like this.
They gave my H one before he came home which probably added to his spaced out feeling. We were all fine with one of the strong combination ibuprofen/tylenol tablets though. Hope your D recovers quickly. C26 had a miserable first day but was ok after that.
. Plus, I had never gone on an official tour of the school- so it was nice/fun for me to get to see it all.
hope she manages to find her people there before it’s over.
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