Lets take a look at those teeth

This past week, we made a very important trip to the Saline County Pediatric Dentist's Office, for Elem's very first visit to get his little teeth cleaned and checked out. We were a little nervous because our niece Cecilia was not blessed with the best teeth and didn't have a very good trip a few weeks back, and actually fond out she is going to have to have a root canal! Yikes! She is only 3! So as soon as I found out about her not so happy trip, I went ahead and got Elem in as soon as I could. I actually was a little confused as to when exactly I SHOULD be making Elem an appointment to have his teeth checked. I have heard and researched conflicting ages for early teeth health. I heard from age 1 year, when they first started receiving teeth, all the way to when they are three years old. So I figured lat 2s should be okay, even though when I called, they almost made me feel bad because we hadn't brought him in yet! But once, we got to the actual office, we got a totally different vibe, which I was so thankful for! We chose our pediatric dentist based on one thing-the fact that we knew the dentist! Seth went to high school with our dentist, Derek Marks, and he seems to be a great family guy, with a good reputation in Arkansas. There are only a few pediatric dentists in the entire state (which I did not know) so he was a good pic for us! I had a great dentist growing up, got regular teeth cleanings, and have very excellent and healthy teeth if I do say so myself, and I really wanted the same for our kid! Just to give him a good start, making sure that from the very first visit, everything was positive, and more about the overall experience, and reason for keeping those little teeth clean, than if we got a bad report.

We do not have dental insurance for Elem, so I am sure that needs to be on the horizon, but for now, we can afford 2 teeth cleanings per year, which is all we are hoping he will need till at least he loses some of those baby teeth! Fingers crossed. Our current teeth brushing routine consists of brushing once in the morning sometime before we head out the door for the day, and brushing teeth before we go to bed. Although sometimes one or the other gets forgotten and Elem is happy to "forget" this little task, but mommy has other plans! For some reason, Elem used to LOVE brushing his teeth, and we are in this almost between stage, where I am the one brushing them to make sure they are actually clean, and he just pouts about it! He used to LOVE brushing his teeth, so I have no idea what happened. Just gonna keep at it, hoping he will find a day where he reconnects with his love of the toothbrush. :)

For now, we just entered the dentist office with high hopes of a good adventure and some really clean teeth. Elem really didn't know what was going to happen once we got into the back, and honestly neither did we. My sweet little boy headin' back for his big visit.


Lucky for us, when we got to the back, it was a mini jungle! Animals were painted all over the walls, and there were all kinds of stuffed jungle animals hanging from the ceiling and the lights-it was super cute. It made for a good fun vibe when we first made it in. Elem was super scared at first-it was a little overwhelming-there were about 12 flatly laid back dentist chairs all lined up, with TVs on the ceiling for you to watch while you had your teeth cleaned by the hygienist. So you could actually see other kids getting their teeth cleaned when you walked in and sat down at your chair. Of course after talking with the staff, they only keep the kids who handle their visit well, and those that scream and end up going crazy are taken back to their own "private" room. Haha. I thought that was pretty funny. It was good to see other kids for Elem, letting him know everything was okay. We propped up in some stools around the chair, first off, and Elem got to pick a brand new toothbrush, and even got to hold the mirror to show him it was not a scary tool. Uhm, he was not so sold at first.


After I brushed his teeth for a few minutes, the girl, finished up, and try to win him over with the "cool water gun". Uhm, still not a huge fan-but he was getting interested. You can tell by his face, he was a little apprehensive with the whole idea of trying all these new things at this point.


Then came Mr. Tooth Monkey. With HUGE teeth I might add, and a HUGE mouth, and an even HUGER tooth brush. That uhm, Elem LOVED by the way! At first site, Elem was excited and seriously got in there to give those monkey teeth a good cleaning!


It was all up hill from there! Thank you Mr. Monkey, for making our very first dental experience a good one. We owe you! Elem was very intense and did some major brushing on those monkey teeth. After the visit by the monkey, we had only positive moments from there! Thanks goodness! That is exactly what we were hoping for.


So at this point, we were just waiting for the actual dentist to come in and give his mouth a once over, to make sure there were no cavities or anything worse going on in there. I took this time to chat with the hygienist and see what all we should be doing to take good care of his teeth and what not. I was glad to know that we were doing everything right so far-brushing twice a day, once in the morning and once at night, but we should also be flossing! We had not thought about this yet, so we need to get going on that. She said that is the main place where small kids get their first cavities, is between their teeth and not actually in the grooves like we as adults get. So good to know. We will start flossing ASAP, at least a little bit that is! Elem was really enjoying his visit by this time, so we decided to take a chance and see if he would jump in the xray chair to take a look at the teeth from that angle. We were very hopeful, but not sure what would happen. Luckily-it went a little something like this:


My sweet little boy all propped up and posed to get a nice pic of those teeth! I was so proud. He couldn't have done better, especially for just being 2 and being asked to do all these crazy things from strangers! In the end we got a couple of good pics of his teeth and when the actual dentist made his way to us, he had nothing but goodness to report on the way his teeth looked! Whew, what exciting news, and what a relief to know that we really are doing the best we can to keep those teeth and gums healthy. The advice of the office, is to just keep coming in for teeth cleaning every 6 months to keep the kids knowing that the visits aren't scary, and that there is nothing to be afraid of. I really like the idea, and of course I was brought up getting teeth cleanings every 6 months, and really I never had a bad experience. I want to keep them positive for as long as we can, so that in the event that we do make a trip and we get some news not so positive, he wont be so terribly terrified of letting them do what they need to to take care of his little chompers. We love our dentist and we will be making another trip back sometime around the fall!