teeth | life on the lost coast

Alas, the lights are back on, the winds have moved on, and I am reunited with cyberspace. Somewhere in the midst of 50 knot winds, slamming rain, and two days without power, we also managed to host a little earthquake. For some reason, the earthquake in complete darkness at 4:45 am seemed a little more nerve-wracking then our more run of the mill shaking by nightlight. Oddly, the earthquakes frequently seem to happen in the lull or calm following big storm. Maybe someone with some geological expertise can shed some light on that phenomenon?

Nola weathered a little storm of her own and has produced one more tooth from her miniature mouth. This brings her to a grand total of four mighty little teeth. She will eat anything that she can wrangle into her mouth which makes our toddler-saturated house a bit of a baby hazard minefield. Ossian regularly pulls soggy cardboard, freight trains, and stray shoes out of her little sister’s insatiable mouth.

Which reminds me of a marvel I witnessed last week. Ossian, now 2.75 years old, calmly received two fillings last week. I was so nervous about it that I canceled several appointments in a row. Despite the pediatric dentist’s assurance that he does it all the time on little ones like mine, I couldn’t conceive of how it would work. I can barely keep myself in the chair after years of experience with fillings, drillings, amalgam removal, root canals, extractions, cleanings, and even deep gum scraping. It makes me cringe even to type about it here. Ossian, however, bears none of the dental angst, loaded expectations, and painful memories of previous dental experiences with which I am laden. I watched her lie back, unflinching and completely unmedicated (no local, no gas, NOTHING), and eagerly hold her mouth wide open while strange grown-ups drilled, picked, scraped, sprayed, sucked, and heated up her decayed molars. She watched the whole thing with interest in the overhead mirror and was completely unaware that she wasn’t supposed to like the experience. But she did like it. It was just another notch in her toddler belt of fun new things. It was shocking. It also made me feel like an uber wuss.. with all my, “wait, wait! I think I can feel that, I need more Novocaine, gas, and Valium” whinyness at the dentist.

Did you know that you are supposed to be flossing your toddler’s teeth daily?? Did you know that you are also supposed to be wiping your infant’s gums with a xylitol solution after every feeding – before they even hint at getting teeth?! Did you also know that dried fruit, no matter how sugarless and organic, is a TOTAL no-no?!!! Same goes for juice – even diluted juice fresh from your backyard apples. All of this was outrageous news to me. It’s a miracle anyone has any teeth at all by the time they get to preschool. Feels pretty rough to know that you have already done irrevocable physical damage to your child, doesn’t it? It’s a good thing I didn’t tell Ossian’s dentist how many months it has been since a piece of floss has been strong-armed between my teeth. I might have been jailed as an unfit parent.

The day after Ossian’s heroic dental feat, she asked me to show her my teeth. I gave her a big, tooth exposing smile to which she said, “mommy, you have really crooked teeth.” No one has ever said that to my face.. not even my 8 th grade orthodontist who lost the debate with my father over whether I needed braces.