Actually, her teeth are beautiful - strong, perfect, nicely sized teeth that she keeps clean and that every nurse in the dentist office commented on. The problem is that there's just too many of them for what those same nurses have referred to as the smallest mouth they've ever seen. They needed to use what they labelled as the "Happy Meal Sized" items to xray and make plaster casts with.
Call me crazy, but some days I'd say she has a pretty darned BIG mouth.
Oh, but we're not talking about what comes out of it, but rather, what's IN it.
Anyhow, she has a new mouthful of metal (braces) that we're all adjusting to. Brushing habits tripled, dietary changes to reduce discomfort and sticking to, in, under and around the metal brackets. Two teeth have to be pulled before we can add wires and elastics to the amount of STUFF in her mouth.
Yesterday she had yet another dental appliance added. A palate expander. Ever seen one of these contraptions? Google it if you wish. A monstrous metal thing (appliance is the right word!) wrapped around two molars on each side up her upper jaw with a connecting bolt that I get to crank each day with a little wrench.
Yup, you read that one right. A WRENCH I stick a tool in my kids mouth and crank on this medieval looking torture device. It almost seems barbaric. Next we'll be bloodletting. Sigh. One crank = two turns. She felt the first one today and I still had to do it again. In a couple days I'm supposed to double that and do two turns TWICE a day. I shudder to think what that will feel like, although the nurse assures me after a couple days she'll have adjusted and it won't be so uncomfortable. :(
The idea is that this metal thing will expand, and with it her still flexible and growing palate to allow for her teeth to space nicely in front instead of meeting like a triangle. Ok... um... OUCH!
She's a brave kid.
I admire her courage and could learn a thing from her resolve to buckle up and just get 'er done.
