The Perfect Writing Lesson

OK, so see? Right here! This is perfect. Let's talk about what writing can really do. Now, you could say the following:

I slipped and hit my face on the couch and my tooth fell out. I bled a lot. It was gross.

There's nothing really wrong with that. It communicates information. It gets the idea across. But oh, the picture you could paint instead:

I was minding my own business, not bothering anyone, just going about my day. Little did I know what awaited me in my own living room. Two steps into the room and my foot met up with a sheet of paper carelessly (and typically) left there by my good-for-nothing brother, who never thinks of anyone but himself. My legs shot out from under me and WHAM! I slammed face first into the back of the couch. My first thought was, "That's funny, I didn't think I was eating anything just now" and my second thought was "Holy Moly, that's not food roiling around in my mouth, that's my TOOTH!" My third thought was "Wow, I didn't know a mouth could generate that much blood." And that third thought stayed with me for a good long time, as did the spurting blood soaking through tissues my semi-panicky mother kept shoving in my mouth. I did, in fact, knock one of my baby teeth clean out of my mouth, but the real blood was coming from my gums, where two other adult teeth have been making their glacial-like way into their front and center position. Adult teeth. You know, the ones I'm really going to USE, if I want to keep eating all that meat I enjoy so much? Yay, those adult teeth. That are now gushing blood down the front of my face and freaking out my younger siblings. That little one keeps trying to hug me. She's so annoying. You'd think my blood-curdling screams would keep her away, but she seems strangely fascinated in a can't-look-away-from-the-car-crash kind of way. Anyway, what I'd really like to do right now is relax and enjoy my first full day of being a homeschooled homegirl, but instead it looks like I'll be taking a little trip to the ER to see what they know about bloody gums. Let's hope the rest of this year turns out to be a little less exciting.

And that, dear daughter, is a lesson in writing, brought to you by life. Welcome to homeschooling. Now please stop marking big occasions with a trip to the hospital. You are starting to get predictable. * * * Good first day, until the bloody part. Will write about it later. Maybe by the time I get them all into Ivy League colleges. Because that's why I'm doing this, right? * * *