the nightmare before Christmas

The two older kids had a routine dentist appointment early this morning. Just a cleaning and check-up. No big deal. I called John on his cell phone two hours after their scheduled appointment time- "Where are you?"

"Still at the dentist's."

"WHY?"

Our dentist is pretty good on the wait time. I have barely enough time to sign in before they call us back. 2 kids, 2 check-ups, it should have been an hour tops.

Apparently BOTH the kids were having teeth issues where their grown up teeth were coming in, but the baby teeth were stuck, and therefore refusing to come out, and if they didn't the grown up teeth would come in sideways, so Madison had to have one extraction, and Nick had to have TWO. Yikes.

The worst part (for me anyway) was that the other day Madison was showing me where the new tooth was poking through her gums, but the baby tooth still wasn't loose at all. She was worried they would have to pull the baby tooth, but I was so sure that they wouldn't I teased her and I started telling her horror stories of having teeth pulled (not like I know about that or anything). "And you are totally awake, and you can hear it being ripped right out of your mouth." She was almost in tears. I did tell her I was just kidding.

I felt totally rotten. Especially as I was thinking about how tomorrow is Nick's birthday, and the next day is Christmas, and what if he can't even eat his own birthday cake, etc. etc. Hopefully the next time I'm tempted to freak out my kids before dentist/doctor/etc., I'll think twice.

They are both doing well, and a little ibuprofen later are totally fine. The new teeth were so far in we don't even have to worry about dry sockets or infections or anything. John bought them ice-cream and donuts, and as they are my kids that form of self medication seems to do wonders for them as well.

On a side note, I had my dentist appointment last week, and miracle of miracles- no cavities. I had great teeth growing up- one or two cavities my whole life and no braces or anything, but after these little leeches I call babies sucked all the calcium out of my teeth when I was pregnant with them going to the dentist was pretty scary. I think the worst was 13 cavities with 2 root canals.