03 February 2012

Score one for the “Tooth Doctor”…

Every now and then my kiddo manages to stun me. As luck would have it, he was a total gentleman for his first visit to the dentists last night. Hubby and I couldn’t have been more surprised. We were fully expecting an epic meltdown, followed by red-faced apologies and a mad dash out the door.

While he did whimper when hubby tried to put him in the chair, our savvy dentist decided to take another approach. Hubs got into the chair first and Drew sat on his lap; this seemed to put him at ease. The dentist then gave Drew a few tools to hold to get him interested. Wouldn’t you know it…he opened his mouth and jammed them in like it was nothing. The window of opportunity to actually get a decent look at his teeth was short-lived, but at least he didn’t cry. I helped coax his mouth open a few more times by getting him to roar like a dinosaur. Fortunately, all his teeth are there and spaced nicely. As for the snaggletooth, it seems to have been caused by his finger sucking. Drew ditched the soother when he was little and started sucking on his index finger even well before his teeth started to grow in. It turns out that he actually managed to affect the shape of his pallet, causing one tooth to grow in longer. Sounds pretty horrible, but the dentist assured us that the problem should correct itself as he stops sucking his finger – a habit we have been encouraging him to indulge in only at bedtime now.

Perhaps the best part of the whole appointment was when the dentist took Andrew over to a small treasure chest to pick out a reward for his good behavior. It doesn’t take much to win over my little guy. He picked out a little race car (of which he already has numerous) and all of a sudden you could see the love and adoration in his eyes. Just this morning, Drew was telling me how much he enjoyed the “Tooth Doctor” – score! We’ll see if he loves her so much when he actually goes for a real cleaning in nine months….that may take several cars.

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