First time at the Dentist

August 31, 2009

I wasn't sure what to expect this morning. Caleb has never been to the Dentist before and I thought that could be a good thing or a bad thing. To prepare him for today we read one Dentist related book every night for a week. And every time he brushed his teeth I said, "Okay Caleb brush your teeth really good so the Dentist will say how clean and white your teeth are." Turns out not only did the Dentist prep help but Caleb is a champ. The visit even started out great. Dr. Dove had a life-like toy train in the lobby for little boys like Caleb and about 20 stuffed animals for little girls like Hannah. As soon as I saw this I thought to myself, either Dr. Dove or his staff are really on the ball with the toys. Normally the toys in Dr. offices are dirty or broken or in short supply but not here at Dr. Dove's. So already the "Dentist" has a gold star from me and Caleb. We went to the back and waited in a small dentist chair. Caleb had no problem with it since he had seen it in one of our books at home. All was great until this little boy came back crying. The worse part was he was put right next to Caleb and there was no wall or curtain to divide him from the other boy. Yikes! The hygienist came to Caleb and quickly cleaned his teeth and was done. Then Dr. Dove came in and looked in Caleb's mouth said that he would need braces when he's older. Honestly I wasn't surprised since both Cory and I had to have braces as teenagers. But I was surprised that Dr. Dove knew this already at age 3. I asked him how he knew this and he said it was because Caleb's baby teeth were already close together but his adult teeth will be bigger and take up even more space in his small mouth. I began to understand and it made a lot of since. My next thought was Patrick. His teeth are spaced pretty far apart and I assumed he wouldn't need braces if Dr. Dove was right. I called Alison when I got home and told her. She sounded relieved. She always said the spaces in his teeth looked a little funny to her. But it turns out to be a blessing!