Monday, July 5, 2010

My New Dentist

I admit it - I have not been to the dentist in years, and my kids have never been to the dentist.  I have many excuses for this lapse in hygene including moving as often as I do, no sore teethe, feeling like I do a great job flossing, and my favorite - I just don't like going.  Well, as it is no longer just about my teeth, but about all the little teeth in my family, I finally made dentist appointments.  

Mitchell and I were up first and today was the day.  I will admit, I was nervous.  I have very weak teeth, and I knew it was not likely I would escape the cleaning without a second visit getting scheduled to come back and fix all that has gone wrong in my mouth.  Despite my general unease, I tried to make it sound exciting for Mitchell.  At first, he was excited to be going somewhere with me all by himself, but one look at that little room with all the equipment in it and he decided this was not where he wanted to be.  There is an aweful lot of complicated looking machinery in there, it's true.  

I went first to show him that it would not hurt and to show off what all the "scary machines" were for.  As I had to sit still facing forward with my mouth gaping open and full of all manner of cleaning and scraping and poking instruments, I couldn't really see him exactly, but I could see that the longer I sat there pretending to be having a great time for his sake, he was creeping farther and farther out of the room and into the hallway.  When I could finally turn my head and take a tiny peek at him, I found him huddled on the floor outside the room just barely peeking around the corner into the room to make sure the dentist hadn't finally finished me off.  

When it came time for him to climb up in the chair, he lost it.  He clamped both hands over his mouth and burst into tears.  "Later mommy, later!  I'll do it later!  I'm not ready!  I don't want him to look in my mouth!  I won't open it!"

It took some serious skill on the part of my dentist and myself, as well as plenty of goofing off with all the "tools" in there, trying to make him laugh and see it wasn't such a big deal, but we finally coaxed him to let him count his teeth and then bit by bit, brush them.  We almost had to reschedule, but in the end, we got his little chompers checked and cleaned.  

You'd think that after all the drama and fears and tears, he would want to forget about the dentist and his experience, but it has been the opposite.  He has been talking about it all day and even pretending to be a dentist himself!  I had to sit still for quite some time this afternoon and let him be my dentist.  He got all manner of tools out to work on my teeth.  Now we have no dentist tools.  We don't even have any doctor's tools, so he improvised.  I had quite the assortment of "tools" working on me - drill, measuring tape, blocks, a saw, flashlight, baseball, tinker toys, even part of a bbq.  Some tools were for "fixing," some were for "cleaning."  Others were for sucking the coffee off my teeth and fixing up my tongue and cheeks while he was in there.  He even labeled his shoes "dentist shoes."


It is good to know that while he seemed quite frightened and a bit traumatized by his first dentist visit, he came out of the ordeal with nothing but respect and excitement for the dental profession.














8 comments:

  1. yep! love it! One day he will have these pics posted in his office when he IS a dentist!! :)

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  2. Deb, This is hilarious !!! This story is definitely told better with the pics :) Hope everything is fine. Now Mitchell can prep Ben :)

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  3. good thing you didn't show him Little Shop of Horrors first.

    You didn't say how your teeth checked out. still need your wisdom teeth extracted? any cavities?

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  6. LOL @ "He has been talking about it all day and even pretending to be a dentist himself!" Mitchell enjoyed the appointment, and it's good that he got comfortable with the dentist early on. And the pictures that you posted here are all cute! Keep up the good work!

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  7. Hahaha! My son also pretends to be a dentist of his baby sister. Maybe that's because their mom told them how fun it is to go to the dentist. =)

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  8. Your boys look so cute as they flash their smiles. Your little boy looks adorable as he looks like a great dentist there. If he were your dentist, I'm sure you wouldn't be scared of going to the dentist. Haha!

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