I’ve mentioned before that I have a serious extreme irrational phobia of teeth. It is ridiculous and illogical but then, all phobias are! I’m also afraid of heights but that isn’t something people are generally confronted with every day. Teeth are difficult to avoid. Most of the time it stays in check but occasionally I am confronted with a situation where I end up thinking about teeth all the time. Which means I feel queasy all the time.

Now is one of those times.

Noah was born with weak enamel. 3 of his top front teeth have hypoplastic enamel (missing, eroded, not decayed) which has required bonding and careful care. The rest of his teeth are “fine”, but the enamel isn’t the hardest you’ll find. Last week Noah had an abscess. His second in just a few months. The first resulted in the loss of one of his three hypoplastic front teeth. I thought for sure that he would need to lose this most recent tooth but after a day spent getting x rays and running from our dentist to the pediatric dentist and back again to consult, it was determined that the abscess was “properly draining” - whatever that means. And that the root was already destroyed and his tooth was loose as a result and would fall out on its own, most likely. This was good news to Noah - he isn’t a big fan of gauze, of all things. If he can lose a tooth at home and repair the damage with tissue, he’s happy. I will admit it isn’t great news for me. I’d rather not have any child of mine lose a tooth ever but, yeah I know, it is sort of part of the natural progression of things! haha. Still, knowing I have a 4 year old with a perpetually loose tooth does not make me sleep well at night.

In the process of having his teeth xrayed, six small cavities between molars were discovered. This sucks but compared to the stuff he’s dealt with so far, it isn’t a huge deal. It is essentially no deal to Noah. I’ve somehow managed to raise three kids, so far, who have no fear of the dentist despite major dental work (crowns, fillings, extractions). He can probably have them all repaired without Novocaine, he is happy. He had an appointment last week to have the work done but Tony forgot to take his xrays so they couldn’t do the work. So I get the consolation prize of six extra days of sleepless worried anxious nights waiting for the work to be done. Not that it’s a big deal, mind you. As I’ve mentioned, Noah is unfazed. It’s just that darned phobia rearing its ugly head.

So his new and improved appointment is in two days. Two more sleepless nights and then we’ll also revisit the idea of extracting the loose tooth although Noah is more and more adamant that he wants it to fall out on his own. My selfish side pleads that he’ll just extract it and be done with it. My good Mama side respects his desire to have a somewhat natural loss.

Today Addison got her first tooth. I’ve been both eagerly awaiting and dreading this day since we got her referral six months ago. I love her gummy toothless smile. But she’s 8.5 months old, older than any of my other kids when their first teeth popped through. So yay for  me! That’s something. And she’s been living in total agony for weeks while she has worked this tooth. So I’m glad for her that she is feeling much better. I just hope her teeth are strong, healthy and she learns to like the dentist as much as my other 3 kids (who have all had major dental work done at very early ages - the irony!!).  Tonight marks her first night of having her teeth brushed. See how I’m trying to hard to sound up-beat? Yay! Teeth!

To mark this day, I gave her poppy seed muffins and glazed carrots - sound nutritional choices for any 8 month old! And also I nursed her. One of the reasons I dreaded this tooth was because I knew it would bring with it all new breastfeeding challenges. Thankfully, at least for today, it was a non-issue. She nursed like any other day. Her sweet little tooth was covered by her tongue, as it should be. So another milestone, come and gone. And the toothless grin will be forever a thing of the past.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 7th, 2007 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Health, Parenting, Venting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.