The tooth fairy will be dancing through tonight.

My kiddo hasn't lost teeth since she was at the end of 2nd grade.  I should add that she only started losing teeth a couple of months into 2nd grade.  I didn't realize it had been that long, but her x-rays agree with her.  She had a backlog of teeth causing a bit of a jam.  In fact, they were starting to impact.  :eek!:  The orthodontist said it was time.  It was time to shed those teeth with a bit of help from Dr. Rick.

We saw Dr. Rick last month.  He had the images in hand from the orthodontist.  He made a plan.  We'd do two teeth today.  We'd do the remaining 4 on March 26.

I picked K up from school, ran home and made a quick batch of homemade macaroni and cheese, threw some cooked sausages on top and sailed off to the dentist.  I gave her the option and she chose to go back on her own.  She knew that I was there if she needed me, but the orthodontist has the parents stay in the waiting room (you can go back if you want) and since they put her in charge of her care, she just pressed on and continued with the same.

Dr. Rick came out, said he had her numb and that she opted to roll with all 6 teeth to get them done and over with.

Alright then.

He pulled her teeth, came out and told me what an incredibly tough kid she is.  She took her iPod, so she listened to music while she had him working.

The roots.  I won't gross you out with photos, but hello long roots!  Everything was just dammed up by these long roots.  To take the pressure off of all of the teeth just being jammed in, he said that he expects new teeth to emerge within two weeks.  He did say one gave him a bit of a hard time.  "Let me guess, the bottom right."  He laughed and told that I was right. "I saw the x-rays.  I figured that would be the toughest one."

She is now home.  She is liquored up on Advil.  She has eaten macaroni and cheese, even though she originally thought she didn't want it.

Dr. Rick also prescribed ice cream.

Hubs is out now, getting ice cream, yogurt and a major tooth pulling prize.  The tooth fairy will be stopping by the house tonight, but she's going to leave a note that her teeth won't be left behind for him/her.  (We have many international tooth fairies fly by and we've never specified our gender preference, so we get both.)  They will still leave her international loot (because they are international travelers, of course) and a dollar per tooth.  (The first tooth was $5.)

Those fairies that give $20/tooth?  Geeze, Louise!  That'll break a tooth fairy's bank in a heartbeat!

"I've never seen anything like that."

That's not what you want the dental hygienist to say.

"Immediate referral to an orthodontist.  Give me a call and tell me what he says he's going to do.  I have no idea what he'll do."

These are things you just don't want to hear at the dentist office.

Rachael has been through this before.  Lily was put into braces in May and she is in 2nd grade now.  She feels my pain.

Don't get me wrong.  We knew that she would need braces.  Dr. Rick told me that when she was three.  "Normally, I tell parents that we need to wait and see, but I'm telling you that she will definitely need braces."

Nice.

What's the big deal?  Well, you have 4 teeth along the bottom with the fence post of eye teeth on either side.  K has three across the middle with eye teeth on the sides.  The 4th tooth is back behind an eye tooth and a regular bottom tooth (I didn't go to dental school, so pardon me if I'm giving the wrong tooth reference) and coming up, causing pain.

We'll be visiting one of my customers here on November 22 at the bright and early time of 7 AM.  The good news is that the consultation is no charge and they take a payment plan.

That's awesome since I hear that dental insurance covers very little of it.

Grand.

Is this the worst thing in the world?  Nah.  When the hygienist was stunned that I wasn't bent out of shape about it, I told her that it is what it is.  I said that it isn't a cosmetic need that could be dismissed as nice, but not absolutely necessary.  Bless her heart, we've known that braces were coming down the pike.  She'll have beautifully straight teeth when we're done-- when she is 50.  ;)