Last week I had the pleasure of taking the kids to the dentist. This was a first for me since Holly usually takes them but we were able to get through things without any problems.
Emma and Hannah both had no cavities but the dentist found a “small one” on one of Alex’s teeth. I figured that we’d have to bring him back but the dentist just took him into a back room, had him open his mouth, and proceeded to drill out the cavity. The entire process took about three minutes. They didn’t even numb Alex’s mouth! I couldn’t believe what I had seen. Alex was in no pain and he was once again cavity free.
Even though she didn’t have any cavities, Emma had to schedule a follow-up appointment to have both of her upper incisors pulled. Her mouth is too small to accommodate all of her teeth so the dentist determined that pulling them now would result in less orthodontic work down the road. She was OK with this at the time and even considered asking the dentist to pull out a few of her teeth that have recently started to wiggle. Then it came time to actually pull the teeth out…
Yesterday I took Emma back to the dentist to have her “meat teeth”, as she calls them, removed. She hadn’t stressed over this too much until we were actually sitting in the waiting room. As we were patiently waiting to for her turn, she kept trying to convince me that we really didn’t need to do this and that it would be OK if we just left. I didn’t agree and we were eventually led into the back where images of Dr. Seuss characters painted on the walls mocked the children with their toothy grins.
The dental assistant hooked Emma up to the laughing gas in hopes of helping Emma relax a bit. Unfortunately, Emma chose this time to become a mouth breather so the gas had no effect. After a few minutes, the dentist came in to give her a few shots to numb her mouth up and then we waited some more. Once her mouth was sufficiently numb, he came back in and pulled out a large pair of pliers. A few minutes later, Emma had two less teeth.
All things considered, Emma did really well. Her mouth is still a bit tender and she has two large holes in her gums where the teeth were removed, but she’s doing great. She was upset over the fact that the tooth fairy took the box that her teeth were in but when she realized that she’s now five dollars closer to being able to buy a Nintendo DS, she was OK with the plastic box being gone.
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Sounds like you were a brave young lady Emma. Way to go.