Well, I know you all been dying to at least see exactly what a supernumerary tooth looks like? Well, you've come to the right place.
Behold the critter that wreaked havoc on my princess's mouth:
Pretty nasty, eh?
At the consultation about the extraction, the dentist had told me to not prepare my daughter for the day of the extraction - that I should just bring her without warning. He explained that otherwise she would be anxious and worried for the weeks preceding and that she would build it up to be worse than it would be. So I didn't say a word about it.
The day of, I told her I was taking off work to be with her and that we were going on an "adventure." She was so excited to have this rare opportunity to have her mommy all by herself, without the distraction of her little sister. On our way to the appointment, I kept looking at her joyful little face in the rear-view mirror and I felt like such a traitor, knowing what was ahead.
As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, she recognized the building, and her happy face immediately transformed into one of panic. She then took her seatbelt off and ran to the back of the van. I had to literally chase her to the back and drag her out of the van, kicking and screaming. She kept crying, "But it's my special day. It's my special adventure! I don't want to go to the dentist. I don't want them to take my tooth." My heart just sank. I felt l had betrayed her and that she would never trust me again.
I had anticipated that I would feel like this but my thinking had been that if it meant that I would shorten the time that my daughter would be consumed by worry and fear about the procedure, then I'd be the bad guy, to spare her that pain.
I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it now, though. I'm not convinced that freeing my daughter from worry and fear is an even trade for losing her trust. I think the latter is more painful to us both.
Once inside the dentist office, things only got marginally better. She would not cooperate well with the nurse in any of the pre-op activities: getting her weighed, determining her blood pressure, etc. She of course would not listen to anything I, Benedict Arnold, had to say. We had to arrive early so that she could also take some "fun" juice to get her feeling loopy. The nurse warned me that there are several different ways a patient will react to the medicine:
1) They will get really happy OR
I guess this medicine is a good indicator as to what kind of drunk one will be later in life. I am happy to report that based on this test, my daughter will be a happy drunk! I'm such a proud mom!
Minutes after getting her to drink the juice (which was no small feat in itself, by the way), my normally rather shy daughter was just the life of the dentist office - smiling, laughing, making small, silly talk with everyone and anyone. My husband showed up unexpectedly at the office at this time, so he was there to enjoy the show as well (although I wish he had been there to take some of the blame for the dishonest car drive!).
When it came time to go back to the operating room, her fear returned just a bit and she started to cry. They allowed my husband to take her back (I was not allowed because they said she was too attached to me). Within a half hour, the both of them were back, with that nasty supernumerary tooth in a box ready for the Tooth Fairy. She also scored a stuffed monkey, stickers, and three balloon animals (in addition to her own, the sweetie said she wanted a red one for her mommy and a blue one for her sister).
I feared that she would be sullen the rest of the day from the entire experience, but as usual, she surprised me. She was smiling and showing off the new space in her mouth within hours. We spent the rest of the day together, just the two of us, watching movies, cuddling, and coloring. At the end of the day, she looked at me and said, Mommy, I loved our special day together, even though I went to the dentist, because I was with you.
So, I've learned two big lessons from this "special adventure":
1) I'm going to be honest with my daughter, no matter what any "expert" says, and no matter how badly it hurts; and
2) My daughter is incredibly resilient and loving and forgiving. I could learn a lot from her.
