The "Daily" Life: 1st Visit to the Dentist

Chloe, Jacob and Jaxen all had their first visit to the Dentist this afternoon! I know, most of you are thinking I should have taken Chloe years ago, but really my own insecurities have held me back. I hate the dentist and when i go, I go alone so that my fears don't rub onto the kids. However, it was time. Chloe and Jacob are both old enough and what better time to start them down the right path than now.

Chloe was first. She was scared and nervous but she didn't let that stop her. She walked right in, sat down and asked the hygienist to go slow and nice and to please tell her everything she was going to do first. =) I couldn't help but think, "That's my girl!" She laid it all on the line and the lady was really nice and did everything Chloe asked her to do. Chloe even asked some pretty good questions about all the tools and gadgets. The hygienist was very impressed with her.

Chloe started out by getting her very first set of dental xrays taken. The film hurt her mouth but she was big and brave enough to hold it long enough to get a decent picture. She loved looking at the xrays! She was even brave enough to sit through the entire cleaning of her teeth and the fluoride rinse (yuck!). She did amazing with all the sounds and gadgets that they were putting in her mouth.

Once the dentist came in to check everything out, we got to discuss Chloe's Class 3 - Under bite.

UNDER BITE - This occurs when the lower teeth protrude past the front teeth. It’s usually caused by undergrowth of the upper jaw, overgrowth of the lower jaw, or both. It can also be caused by missing upper teeth. This can prevent the normal function of front teeth or molars, which can lead to tooth wear. It can also cause painful jaw and joint problems.

This is something that she's had for as long as I can remember and it doesn't bother her. However, I learned today that if we don't fix it now while the baby teeth are falling out and the new teeth are coming in, as an adult it would require extensive surgery to re-align her jaw and then braces to bring the teeth into the correct placement. *Gulp!* Our dentist has seen a number of kids with this problem, including one of his own. And he has an easy fix for it. Over the next 6-months, Chloe will loose both of the top front teeth. They are both currently loose. Hopefully, when the adult teeth come in, they will automatically be the teeth out in front. However, if they look like they are going to sit behind the bottom row of teeth, Chloe will get crowns glued on to the front set of teeth and over a 2-week period, during normal eating and talking, her teeth will move that direction and her bite will align naturally. After 2-weeks, the crowns get removed and Chloe goes on like normal. Of course, the dentist did say that it could take a couple tries with the crowns before the "correct" alignment is achieved and the crowns are a little bigger than normal teeth - so she might look a little funny or off, but they have seen very good results and it's a whole lot cheaper and less invasive than surgery. And the dentist did say that Chloe could force the teeth forward with her tongue or fingers while they are growing in if she messed with pushing them forward. So we will see, everything will take course once we see how her adult teeth are coming in!

Other thing that was surprising because she's still a little young, Chloe has her first set of adult molars coming in. In fact, most of them are a good chunk of the way in. These molars will need to be capped once they are in all the way to protect them from decay.

Next up was Jacob! I wasn't so sure about him sitting still through the whole thing, but he did better than I expected. He was really leery about the tools and gadget that they wanted to stick in his mouth, but they put him in charge of the air sucker and he was in heaven. While they brushed and cleaned his teeth, Jacob got to hold the air tube sucking out the yuck. It was so funny to watch him in action. He even tried to suck up the hygienist's hand while she was cleaning his teeth.

Jacob didn't get xrays done because he was so antsy, they are going to try next time since he will know what he's there for. He did however get the fluoride rinse, but because they were worried about him swallowing it, it was a very diluted rinse. He surprised us all and did great - I told him if he swallowed it I would know because his belly would turn purple!

The dentist checked in Jacob's mouth and said he had a great set of teeth, all his baby teeth are nicely spaced for his adult teeth to come in perfectly. In fact, his teeth were ideal. He isn't going to have any of the problems that Chloe might have. Which is nice to know that we might only have to pay an arm and a leg for one child! Just Kidding.

Overall, older two did great. They both got awesome spinning tooth brushes - I always got the old cheap kind! Chloe's is Cinderella and Jacob has a Red Power Ranger. Jaxen also got his teeth looked at, but at this point it's more just to have interaction with the dentist and office staff. His teeth are looking nice and he will get his first "attempt" at cleaning them around 18-24 months, once he has molars.

Jerry got his stitched taken out. He's all finished with the dentist until he goes back with the kids in 6-months! I've already got the appointment scheduled so that he can't back out on me!! Of course, the dentist did say that if he had any issues before then to just give them a call and they will get him seen asap. Outside anything crazy, Wednesday, August 6th everyone goes back for another cleaning just before school starts.

Once we got home, Jerry got some of the dog fence posts put up. After fighting over where to put the dogs, I gave up. The fence isn't where I would like it, but it will do. . . I just want them out of my house. Chloe and I also took full advantage of the nice weather and took a ton of boxes and trash to the burn pit and set her ablaze! It was beautiful outside today - a year ago we had blizzard like conditions and 10.5 inches of snow on the ground!

So we went from this in 2011: