the dentist

The boys had their 1st dentist appointment today!

I’ll just let you know upfront that we did not get a single picture of the milestone.  It didn’t even occur to me until we got to the car that I should have taken a picture.  But in between wrangling toddlers in a toy filled waiting room and completing 20 pages of new patient paperwork and consoling traumatized little boys I somehow forgot to pull out the camera for a quick picture.  Silly Me!! We went to a local pediatric dentist.  The practice was definitely kid friendly and the staff ran a tight operation to get the kids in and out as fast as possible.  This is great.  And much appreciated.  But this also meant that I was dragging around a mountain of paperwork the entire time because I never had enough time to actually sit and finish it.  Add that to lugging around heavy winter coats and hats and gloves (because it was -9 today) and stuffed animals and the diaper bag and snacks and things get even more chaotic.  The whole appointment, for both boys, took a total of 45 minutes and had I not had the paperwork to do we would have actually been out in 30 minutes.  That’s awesome.  They took both boys back at the same time.  Jakob immediately started crying and clinging to Kara when the dental hygienist called his name in the waiting room.  Jakob may be the biggest flirt in the world but he is super leery of new situations!  We held each boy in our lap (facing us) and then laid their head down on the dental hygienists lap.  So essentially the dental hygienist was cleaning their teeth upside down.  This way we could hold their arms and the dental hygienist could cradle their head.  Jakob sobbed and screamed the entire time.  I’m still not sure how the dental hygienist managed to clean his teeth!  But his teeth looked great.  No cavities.  Jakob is still missing his two year molars (4 teeth) and his cuspids (4 teeth).  I guess Jakob doesn’t have a whole lot of room in his mouth so the dentist encouraged us to try and start flossing his teeth.  That should be fun.  We can barely get the little man to let us brush his teeth.  But I guess we did learn a better way of holding him today.  So Alex was watching quietly from the corner while Jakob was screaming and sobbing in the chair getting his teeth cleaned by the dental hygienist.  It was interesting to watch Alex from a distance.  You could see his face get more and more concerned as the minutes ticked by until eventually you saw this tiny little tear trickling down his face.  Was he concerned because his brother was upset?  Or was he concerned because he knew he was next?  Who knows?  But it was neat to watch his emotions nonetheless.  Alex fought the dental hygienist a bit but he did not scream and cry.  You could just tell he was not happy about the situation.  Alex is only missing his two year molars (4 teeth) at this point.  Alex has started chewing on the inside of his cheeks.  We are not sure why at this point.  He does it mainly in his sleep at night so it could be a subconscious behavior.  The dentist just asked us to keep any eye on it and if it got too bad we can bring him in to evaluate it some more.  I had also mentioned it to his speech therapist the other day.  I’m not sure if it is relevant to any speech behaviors.  The dentist also gave a fluoride treatment to the boys.

So we go back again in six months.  Perhaps it will be easy the next time?   Or not.

Mary