High as a Kite!

Because Tim and I are terrible parents, our little girl ended up with a bunch of cavities this year - four in total, back in her molars where the teeth touch. Our dentist has been so nice about the whole thing, has avoided making me feel too much shame, but the thing I felt worst about was the fact that Ellie had been SO good at her dental appointment, so happy to be there, and I worried that one bad experience with a filling would put her off of it. I know too many people who hate the dentist or are scared of dental work, and I don't want that for her (especially because if she has her dad's teeth, she's going to basically live at the orthodontist and dentist in her teen years.)

Our dentist assured me that it would be a good experience, and recommended that we give her a dose of laughing gas to take off the edge. Ellie sauntered into the dentist on Tuesday, happy as a clam, ready to get her "sugar bugs" fixed. The doctor asked her if she'd like to listen to music, and she goes "oh yes, 9 to 5!" So, she got Dolly Parton up on the headphones and plugged Ellie in, while the assistant plugged her into the goofballs. And oh man, was Ellie a goofball. At one point she hollered out "ISLANDS IN THE STREAM! I LOVE THIS SONG!" and then waved her hands around, dancing. She didn't flinch during any of the injections (even though later she said she felt like it was a shot - please recall that I have to hold her down at the doctors for her boosters) and she was so happy to share random facts with the dentist, like saying out of nowhere "I WEIGH FIFTY POUNDS!" And when the dentist asked her to scoot up in the chair, Ellie goes "don't look at my underwear!" because she was in a skirt. Our dentist was so great with her, explaining everything in terms that she could understand, and making it fun. While she was putting on the bonding compound, she told Ellie that she was drawing on a tiny picture of a kitten, and her assistant goes "oh, don't forget the whiskers." They really played it up. At the end, Ellie sat up and goes "now it's time for the toybox!" and told them "this is the best day ever!"

Plus I got her a milkshake on the way home, because I figured dinner would be a bit of a mess with half of her mouth numb, and lo, it was. The filling itself was fine, but at some point in the late afternoon, she put one of her teeth deeply into her lip, and also really chewed up in the inside of it. So, she's had a huge fat lip for the past two days, despite promising the dentist that she wouldn't bite at it. I don't know if she did it in an absent minded way, or if she did it on purpose because her face was numb and she couldn't feel it, but hopefully this is the only time it'll happen. Because we have to go back next week and get the other side fixed up.

The poor thing then cried yesterday morning that she couldn't go to school, or to ballet "looking like this." Oh, my poor darling. No one will make fun of you, I told her, and if they do, tell them to worry about themselves. And also, this is probably not going to be the last time that something's wrong with your face and it makes you want to stay home. But whether it's a fat lip, or a fat zit in your teens, you're going!