First cavity for M

Madison and Ella had a cleaning at the dentist this morning. Madison had a very negative experience when Madison was 5 or so with my old dentist, who was pretty impatient with her. I moved them to the new dentist when we moved back to Rochester 2 years ago. The new dentist is specifically a pediatric dentist, and she's great.

But Madison, who remembered the first experience, always hated the whole trip to the dentist, thoroughly and completely. She has always explained it as a matter of the loss of control of something sticking in her mouth, coupled with a gag reflex. Both girls usually want me to bring their own toothpaste instead of using the ones at the dentists', and Madison has often requested just to bring her own toothbrush, too, instead of having the hygienists use theirs. This morning, though, I bundled them out the door without it, seemingly unintentionally, not mentioning it at all. And they were fine, absolutely fine, about the cleaning, even Madison.

But then at the end, the dentist told me that Madison had a cavity. Would I like them to do the X-ray and filling now, or wait and make another appointment? I put it to Madison and she told me she wanted it now. Good, I thought. Because there would be no time for her to investigate or ask too many questions in the interim, which might make her nervous. But also bad, because it really risked ruining her first Just-Like-Normal-Kids Dental Experience with the memory of the drill and filling.

Damn, damn, and blast, I thought to myself. It became one of those exercises in total parental self-control. I hated the idea that Madison might have inherited my proclivity toward cavities, and I myself loathe getting them filled. But I couldn't exhibit anything but cool normalcy about the whole thing, because that child's antennae are sensitive beyond belief when it comes to that. I succeeded. Good Mommy.

And, the whole filling turned out to be no big deal. The dentist didn't even need Novocaine. And it was on a baby tooth, which should fall out in 3 years or so. Whew. Escaped that one by...yes...the skin of my teeth.