Say, Cheese!

Well, the past few days have been pretty busy. On Friday, when we were down in Old City, Liv and I were hanging out front of the Arden Theatre waiting for Daddy to get out of work. She was blowing bubbles and I got a really close glimpse at her teeth and I noticed that her top 6 teeth had discoloration on them. We woke up Saturday and when Ryan got a good look at them, he thought they didn't look good so we called high and low to get into a dentist. To make a long story short, 3 dentist visits later, Liv had 6 cavities. The dentists said they weren't caused by food. It most likely was from me nursing her until she was 2. Apparently, once food is introduced in a baby's diet, the milk mixed with the bacteria caused by food can cause cavities. We all know that Liv was not a good sleeper until she was over 1 1/2 so when I would nurse her at night the milk would lay on her gum line and eventually caused decay.
We heard horror stories of how filling the cavities could be traumatic. There were talks of restraining and sedating her. So lets just say Ryan and I were hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. I got a call from Dr.McKee yesterday saying he could squeeze her in on Wednesday because of a cancelation. (side note-----Dr. Mckee is an absolute AMAZING dentist; if you live anywhere near the Main Line he was voted best pediatric dentist) Since we knew we were going in, mommy started dentist boot camp. Well, not really, but Liv, daddy, and I played dentist with her doctors kit. We used this goofy yellow cup as the rabbit nose(to prep for the laughing mask). We used the thermometer as the drill and told her we were tickling our teeth. the needle was the water, and she had a mouth mirror thing too. Daddy may not have appreciated being woken up at 6:30am with Liv trying to shove all of these utensils down his mouth. But it was well worth it because it really ended up helping her prepare (and me).
I was super nervous but knew we had to get this done. The dentist wasn't sure how it would go and showed Ryan how to hold her incase she was flailing. Well, lets just say Liv sat by herself in the big chair all by herself (Man, I should have brought a camera). We didn't know if she would get 1 filled or all filled.Well, she ended up having ALL of her cavities filled in one sitting. There wasn't a tear in her eyes the entire time. He used Laughing Gas (which I was hesitant on, but now wish he could send me a tank home to whip out in the middle of tantrums). We talked to her the entire time and she would talk back. Her responses made sense but she had us cracking up. She would laugh at times and list all of the Backyardigans when we asked her to. Towards the end of the visit, the "Elephant Mask" fell off and she was so good Dr. McKee kept it off.

The courage in her brought tears to my eyes. She sat up so proud of her teeth and smile. I brought a wrapped present to give her at the end but she was so darn excited to get Dr. McKee's sugar free lollipop, my gift was dirt. Oh well..... I will make sure she gets extra hugs and kisses today. She gave us the best gift ever.......pride.