Again...trying to play catch up a bit over here so look for several blog posts over the next week or so.
I want to post about the kids' smiles. And to start, I have to tell about how funny Vanna is. One night in August, we had let just Vanna stay up with us to watch a movie because she had taken a long nap earlier that day and Cash and Rosie were plain worn at the end of the day and had gone to bed earlier. It was fun to have some one-on-one time with her.
After the movie, when her dad went to get in the shower, she sat on my lap and we just talked (I love that!). Whenever we do that I often find myself just admiring her features. She has such big beautiful eyes, the perfect lips, such a pretty shaped smile and such unusual teeth. Hahaha. Vanna has always had a cross-bite and as a result, she has scarring on her teeth and they are worn away in the places where they collide. It was at this time that my attention was drawn to her teeth and the thought came to me...the thought came to me that it shouldn't be long before she starts losing teeth. I remember Cash started losing teeth in Kindergarten so I shared this with her. Only half serious I said, "Let's look at your teeth and see if you have any loose ones." Imagine my complete surprise when I found that both her bottom front teeth were incredibly loose. She thought my reaction was fake and that I was teasing her. She honestly had no idea she even had loose teeth - which baffles me (specially because she is my best teeth brusher and you'd think she'd somehow realize this). I thought it was so funny how clueless she was to it!
She did not want to wiggle her new found loose teeth or have me or Ty help her to pull them - she was afraid it would hurt. But she lost them both within the month and loved her visits from the tooth fairy!
As Vanna's permanent teeth began to grow in we soon realized she had indeed inherited my family's genes when it came to our mouths. My side of the family were pretty much all doomed to have large teeth and small mouths which eventually makes for beautiful smiles but in the years leading up to that, it makes for very crowded mouths as new and large permanent teeth try to find room to grow into such small spaces.
Son after we had dentist appointments for Cash and Vanna and it was determined that they should both have teeth pulled. Cash had already had two teeth pulled in an effort to provide room for his huge teeth to grow in but as you can see below - they started growing in behind other baby teeth because there was still a lack of space.
 |
| Horrible lighting/shadows + Cash hadn't brushed yet = terrible picture...but you get the idea. :) |
The dentist thought it would be best to pull all of his K-9 teeth and decided that Vanna should have two pulled (the ones next to her new lost teeth in the front bottom) in order to prevent the same problems we've already experienced with Cash.
Maybe it was Cash's previous experience that had him nervous for the experience, maybe it's just that he can often be a bit melodramatic or because his teeth were large (with large roots) and more difficult to pull than Vanna's smaller ones but he had much harder time of it than she did (having to hold my hand, wincing/whining, etc.). However, I was very proud of how brave Vanna was. she was actually hilarious, acting as though nothing was going on - just shooting the breeze while watching cartoons on the ceiling TV...hahaha. Maybe it was the laughing gas...what do you think? :)
The kids were such a sad sight as we left the dentist office - both their mouths packed with gauze. I felt so sorry for them. Needless to say - we had lots of soft foods for them to enjoy as their mouths healed...poor things.
And I definitely don't want to forget Vanna's comment - when it came time to spit out the gauze, she said pointing to her lip, "Mom take this off, I don't like this!" I was confused at first and she kept repeating it until I realized she didn't understand what she was talking about. She was simply pointing to her lip thinking it was more gauze in her mouth or something - just knowing it felt different because it was still numb. I had to take her the mirror to convince her of the truth of it. So funny!
Now months later, the kids look much different than they did just a short time ago with such different smiles (for a while there we called Cash "Toothless") but we can see a dramatic improvement with the alignment of the kids' teeth/smiles and we're glad. We'll probably have much of the same in the future and our dentist teases (although he's completely serious) about how we have lots of orthodontist visits to enjoy in the future as well. That will cost a pretty penny - what we don't do for our kids right!? Hahaha.
