Goober & The Dentist

Yesterday Goober had his first trip to the dentist.

Yes, I am a terrible mother and my almost 7 year old had never been to the dentist before yesterday. I realize this officially extinguishes any chance I have for entering the mommy hall of fame. Bite me.

To be completely honest with you, I would have put it off even longer. Because I'm about as scared of the dentist as I am of frogs jumping on my face.

I do attempt to not force this fear on to my children and I lie to them the entire way to the dentist by saying things like "Oh honey, don't worry! The dentist is GREAT and he keeps your teeth healthy and strong! The dentist is a wonderful place!"

All the while I'm shaking in my flip flops at the mere thought of entering a dentist's office.

Anyhow, as I was saying, I would have put off the dentist even longer if I could have. But Goober had an issue. Some time when he was 3 or 4 he was playing in the bathtub and fell and hit his front tooth on the side of the tub. The tooth then turned an interesting shade of off-gray and his pediatrician assured me that it just had nerve damage and would fall out just like any other baby tooth, but that I should probably take him to the dentist just to be sure.

I chose to not hear that last part because dentists are evil... so what I heard was "Everything is fine. Don't worry about it. You're a great mom."

(I happen to know of a wonderful dentist who is a brownie mom in Munchkin's troop and she is not evil at all... but I may think differently if I saw her at work with one of those horrible drills in her hand.)

So a few months ago the funky off-gray tooth started to get wiggly and I got excited that the sucker was finally going to be gone. Except... it never fell out. And his new grown up tooth was coming in all funny behind it. So I consulted Miss Wonderful Brownie Mom Dentist at our last meeting and she gave me the look. The look said "Get your kid to a dentist and get that thing yanked, lady."

And then she recommended to me a good pediatric dentist.

So I took my poor little nervous Goober yesterday morning, bright and early, to his very first dentist visit. And he was scared. And I lied to him the whole car ride there, telling him how great the dentist is and all that complete BS.

Little nervous Goober bravely sat down in the intimidating dentist chair and as he waited for the hygienist to come clean his teeth, he listened intently to the screaming child across the hall getting his teeth cleaned. He looked at me and said "Well, at least I'm not that kid."

And I wanted to grab his adorable little self and haul him out of there. My mommy heart was breaking.

He had his x-rays done and then his cleaning and he was looking pretty strong and happy. The dentist came and took a glance in his mouth and then did a wincey noise and gave me the look that said "I'm going to cause your baby a great deal of pain and you'd better buck up and not cry in front of him."

The hygienist frowned a little and told Goober he could pick three toys out of the treasure chest.

Goober thought he was all done when he got to get up and pick out toys. I'm sure his little head was thinking "Hey, mom was right! This dentist thing wasn't so bad at all!"

Oh, my poor sweet boy.

I had to go out to the desk and sign a paper that consented them to cause a horrible amount of pain to my dear little man. And then they took Goober into a different room. And I couldn't be in there with them. Probably because mothers have previously smacked the crap out of that dentist when he did what he was about to do to my baby.

I looked through the glass section of the door and watched helplessly as they strapped my baby down so he was powerless to move. I watched them give him a little nitrous oxide (evidently not enough), and then I watched as the dentist yanked both of his two front teeth out and I heard my little Goober scream bloody murder.

And I cried.

But not in front of him.

By the time he came out, sniffling with a mouth full of bloody gauze. I had dried my tears and gave him a big smile. The dentist made some joke about Goober being full of drama and I resisted the urge to smack him.

I know, I know... he was just doing his job.

Goober got over the sniffles pretty quickly when the hygienist showed him his teeth and put them in a little container so he could put them under his pillow for the tooth fairy. That was pretty darned exciting, because Goober had never had a visit from the tooth fairy before.

So all is well again in the Spaz household. And Goober now has more cash than I do.