four outta five dentists....

so about a year ago we were floored to find out that devin had a whack of cavities. we have always been very careful about making sure both girls didn't get sweets nor juice, offering raisins and apples instead of candy, brushing faithfully twice a day, visiting the dentist twice a year since she they were 18 months...but somehow...bam...the eldest has crummy tootypegs.



once we recovered from the initial shock and guilt and got another appointment scheduled, we toodled back to the dentist office to have the issue dealt with. never being one to shy away from people or medicine devin happily plopped herself into the chair and opened her mouth wide with daddy standing nearby....while i waited in the waiting room with deirann....


everything went well for the first 5 minutes or so then i heard a cry that woulda make clarice starling shake in her boots followed by a heart wrenching "mmmmaaaammmmmmmaaaaa....."


rob appeared at the door, sweating, "noel, you have to come in here and help...."




gulp. ok, i signed up for the good, bad and ugly of parenting and i think this was covered somewhere in the small print. when i made it into the exam room, poor devin was pinned down by the hygienist while the dentist was trying to deal with her cavity. seeing your baby in that situation is not good....and i did everything in my power to contain myself and not put those two woman in full nelsons on the floor.

"i think it is safe to say that you can just finish what you need to do to get her through the night so that we can deal with this another time in another way." i think my mamabear tone came through clear enough and medusa and her sister got their acts together and we were outta there pdq.

luckily we were able to get into a pediatric dentist two days later and eventually a pediatric dentist that offered gas...for the patient, not me. devin had her teeth sorted and $1500 (!) later, she flashed a sparkly smile complete with "gold mama not silver" caps on two baby teeth....yup $1500 to sort out BABY teeth! as parents we were assured we shouldn't beat ourselves up over the cavities and that devin had deep fissures that were prone to these issues....enough to keep me from anymore self-flogging.

fast forward a year to late august when devin complained of a sore tooth on the eve of deirann's dentist's appointment...good timing! when we arrived at the office they were happy to accommodate dev and after an xray stated that she had an infection in one of her "gold" teeth (honestly, they are the silvery ones and no she doesn't look like flavour flav with a grill). hopefully a does of antibiotics would nip it but if not, she would need it to be pulled....pulled....oh dear god how are we gonna explain that one to her???


anyhow, the meds didn't work and 2 weeks ago big d went in to have her first tooth pulled. we warned her that there would be blood and that no, we could not put a bandaid on it but that she would be ok and she would get to bring the tooth home. rob took her to the appointment (did i mention i am a HUGE wimp in these situations??) and waited for the call to say all was well....

the phone finally rang and all i couldn't make out what he was saying because of all the screaming in the background.


"oh my god, is she ok? what did they do???"


" they pulled the tooth."


"well i know that! but did they give her something for the pain?? is she ok? should i come home??"


"what noel?? i can't hear you? devin stop screaming!"


well if i could have climbed through the phone and strangled my heartless husband for speaking to my girl that way....i woulda.


"here, talk to your mother."


"mmmmaaaammmmmaaaaaaaa...."


"oh dev, are you ok? are you in pain???" i was doing everything not to cry myself.


"no....waaaaa....pain.....waaaaaaaa,"


"what devin, do you feel woozy??"


"no...waaaaa...mama....waaaaaaa."


"what is it devin??? what is wrong???"


"they...waaaaa....wouldn't lemme keep my tooth.....waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"


we paid $750 to have that tooth capped the year before....ya think they woulda let her keep it or at least offered us some sorta rebate or something on it !!!


so, you can imagine what the rest of the conversation was like....devin wailing while i am trying to negotiate her off the ledge. she finally settled when we came up with the solution of writing the toothfairy (gotta love the fact we tell our children to NEVER lie....but an imaginary fairy leaving $ is acceptable false truth) a letter explaining what happened and leave that under her pillow.


the next few days were great. she happily showed EVERYONE the hole in her mouth and $ that the toothfairy left and we waited for the appointment to get her fitted for a spacer. i decided to be the brave one (ok, rob actually made me step up to the plate on this one) and bring devin to the appointment with deirann in tow before heading to work for the day. we went in and both girls happily greeted everyone in sight while playing in the waiting room (when did the dentist office become such a great place??? i swear i am going organize a playdate to meet there and enjoy all the toys!). when she was called, devin jumped up and skipped (yes skipped!) to the exam room and plopped herself in the chair. the hygienist did her thing and in a few minutes we were ready to leave.


"ok dev, let's go," i turned to see devin with her heading hanging low and one droopy lip appearing....


"what's wrong??"


she looked up with her big blues eyes, " that's it??? i want more. can' t the dentist use the suck chin (aka suction)on my spit??"


are you kidding?


i finally got her out of the room with the promise of some new dental floss only to turn and realize deirann was no where in sight. crap. she is fast, sneaky and recently labelled the "escape artist".

"marco???" our usual way of finding each other.

"polo!"

"marco???" i followed the sound of her voice...


"polo!" found her. sitting in the dental chair waiting for someone to come and fuss over her teeth.


"sorry d, you don't have an appointment today, we need to go to school."


"NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"


my child proceeded to have a full on fit in the dentist chair because she wanted someone to do something to her teeth....how can these children be mine?


so, a very kind-hearted hygienist flossed deirann's teeth and used the "suck chin" on her allowing us to finally leave the office and get on the road to work.


so where are we now? well yesterday devin had a spacer put in ( "its kinda like bracelets mama" "....um that's braces devin") and she is good to go for 3 months before our next check up. we are keeping a closer eye on deirann and limiting raisins and other chewy foods (who woulda thunk they were worse than lollipops???) and realizing sometimes things are outta your control. i have also decided that pediatric specialists are god-like and well worth the extra $ and that somehow i have managed to mother two children with a love of medicine that makes me wonder it they are truly mine.....