Adventures in dentistry

We've had a toothsome week at our house. Faith lost her 6th baby tooth on Wednesday. It had been very, very loose for a very, very long time, but she doesn't like to wiggle them. So instead, she got kicked in the mouth by a girl in the McDonald's Play Place, and that knocked it out. I was effusively grateful, as she had a dentist appointment today. We almost had to shell out eighty bucks for the dentist to pull her last loose tooth, as the permanent tooth was coming in behind it and would have been pushed out of alignment. Fortunately, she hit her mouth on the edge of a cardboard box she was playing in and saved us from having to pay for that one.

The tooth fairy at our house brings her a book and a dollar for each tooth. The first tooth she lost, she only got a book for, but Tommy felt that the traditional monetary tribute should be upheld so the next book came with a dollar bill. Faith was confused. "What am I going to do with a dollar?" she wanted to know.

So, as I said, today was a dentist appointment for both children. I write the appointments on Faith's calendar when I make them so she can anticipate them. Seriously, she gets very excited, like birthday-party excited: "I can't wait for tomorrow! I get to go to the dentist!" She informed me quietly last night that she wouldn't tell Eric about the upcoming dentist appointment "because then he'd want to go right now, and it's not until tomorrow." They might be changelings. When I was little, my mother didn't tell me about dentist appointments until the morning of, so it wouldn't ruin more than just the one day, with the tears and the nausea and the begging not to go. My pediatric dentist had a two-level wooden play structure in his waiting area, and one time I climbed up on the top and refused to come down when they called my name to go back. I thought if I waited long enough, I'd miss my appointment. Eventually, I realized I'd have to come down sometime and got more scared of what my mom would do to me than what the dentist would. (Sorry for the public embarrassment, mom! Good times, right?)

It's an excellent pediatric dentistry practice, I must admit. All the hygienists know how to make balloon animals, and you get one of those and a prize at every visit. If you have to have fillings, they give you extra prizes. Eric had to have fillings last time around, and I thought the dentist and I should have gotten prizes. He screamed and cried the entire time they were working in his mouth. We even paid extra and got there an hour earlier for a sedative that was supposed to make him sleepy and more docile. I think it just made him crankier. Faith had to have fillings a few years ago, and even without an extra sedative, she actually fell asleep in the chair while they were filling her teeth. They had to wake her up from her nap when they were done.