Ramblings: Joker

My bragging rights that I've never had a cavity ended this morning as my dentist injected the right side of my face with enough stuff to numb an elephant. My lifelong streak had to end sometime, I suppose. My dentist said I could blame it on the bracket thingies that they put around your molars when you get braces. Apparently, those things often lead to decay along the gum line because you can't clean under them the whole time you've got braces.

The sad thing is, in a sick way I was actually looking forward to going and sitting ALONE in the quiet of the dentist's office for an hour. (If that's not an indication to how crazy this week's been, I don't know what is.) So as he worked on my right molar, I tried to keep my half-numbed tongue out of his way while flipping between the only two decent shows I could find on the remote I was blindly using by randomly pushing buttons. At one point I couldn't get it to switch off of Jerry Springer that I had accidentally selected, and I was mortified that the dentist or his assistant would look up at the ceiling and think that I actually chose to watch "I'm in love with my first cousin and I need to find out if he's the father of my baby."

I found this picture when I was googling for funny numb-face picture. I'm not sure how I feel about it--on one hand, it shows you that your dentist has a sense of humor. And it's definitely more fun to look at then those plain boring masks.

But it could also backfire--I don't necessarily want to go to a dorky goofball that holds giant needles and tools that can potentially grind your teeth into smithereens, the whole time grinning like a reject from some small budget Little Shop of Horrors production.

When I got home, the kids thought that the slightly swollen and completely numb ride side of my face was hilarious. For whatever reason, the injections made the ride side of my mouth turn up a little like the Joker. I thought it was a great teaching/scare them straight moment so I showed them my swollen mouth and raw gums and said "THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TO DO A GOOD JOB BRUSHING YOUR TEETH!" But with my half dead face, I think it came out sounding more like, "BIS ISS BY BOO DEED DO DO DUH GOOBOB BRUBRSHBIN YOO PEEF!" and for whatever reason, they looked a little confused and concerned.

I live in fear that the kids may show signs of Jeremy's weak enamel genes and we'll spend our days working to pay off the dental bills. But the good news is that none of them have had any cavities yet, so maybe we'll be in the clear until it's time for them to get braces. And trust me, based on how crazy Alex's permanent teeth have been coming in, braces are in the near future.

Speaking of Alex and his crazy teeth...he's had a couple of loose teeth in the front that he's mentioned. Last week we noticed that his permanent teeth are already starting to grow up behind them. WHAT!? So we told him--Either you get those things out of there in the next two weeks, or we're going to the dentist and he'll pull them out. (Or another option is that we call Uncle Brent, and he'll sneak into your room while you're sleeping and rip it out with a rusty old wrench. His poor traumatized daughter...) So about 15 minutes later, he had one of them out. He has kept up his tradition of leaving a note for the Tooth Fairy and I still get a good laugh out of each one.
Some items to note: 1) He has lost almost every tooth before he has a chance to leave it for the Tooth Fairy. Plus, we need to discuss how "credit" works. 2) His penmanship has really gone downhill since school's been out. And we need to work on where to put the $ sign. 3) Is he trying to brownnose the T.F.? Since when is he worried about being greedy? Sheesh. Sadly, the Tooth Fairy can't afford 5$/tooth and he only got 3$. No mention of giving it to the poor this time.