Teeth and Bribery

Today was Stinkerbelle’s very first trip to the dentist.

We’ve been talking about it for weeks now. For someone like me, whose dental experiences as a child were fairly terrible, it was important that I make going to the dentist as positive as possible for Stinkerbelle. So we’ve been building it up and making it sound like a fun outing.

And to her credit, it was as much fun as one could expect. There was a big bathroom to go potty beforehand, and toys in the reception room, and a TV in the waiting area too.

The whole dentist thing was a lark for That Girl, it seemed. Until we actually went IN to the exam room.

There are a lot of things in a dentist’s office that are a little intimidating to a three year old. Stinkerbelle was stopped in her tracks by the chair. It’s kind of big and scary, to be fair. But she got in and gamely took a little ride. That is, until they tilted it back and then it was OKAY I ALL DONE NOW.

We let her sit up.

She let the hygenist, Ashley, count her teeth. She tried to follow the open-close-open-close commands, but for someone who is speech delayed, it was hard for her. But she let Ashley use the little mirror to look around, and examine her bite.

She loved the polisher, and the toothpaste. But my kid likes toothpaste.

But UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES could Ashley turn on the big overhead exam light. That thing came on, and Stinkerbelle was once again NOOOO OKAY I ALL DONE NOW BYE.

But for someone her age, she did really really well. We waited for the dentist to come in and do his exam. I was looking forward to that, because with That Girl’s oral-motor issues, I really wanted his opinion to see what was what.

Our dentist is nice enough. He’s a pleasant sort, but English is not his first language. So when he came in and began looking around, I began to tell him about her problems with speech, and chewing, and swallowing…

And it was like I was speaking Swahili. I don’t think he was following what I was asking him about. Or, maybe he was and he was just ignoring and/or disregarding it. Either way, I got nowhere, no confirmation or observations about what role, if any, her bite or palate or shape of her mouth have in her current problems.

So that was great.

Still, it was positive and Stinkerbelle had a good enough experience that she would go back. Plus, she got a free toothbrush and a toy at the end, so, you know, SCORE. A little swag never hurt anyone’s chances of agreeing to come back.

On the way home, we stopped in to visit Daddy at his office. Which meant we spent 5 minutes on a pee break and 10 minutes being quiet so Stinkerbelle and Daddy could have a two minute visit. Strategically, this was not my best-laid plan. First off, BDH is just incredibly busy all the effing time, so he certainly doesn’t have tons of time to visit. Secondly, having a three-year-old is like having a very tiny drunk around all the time: no sense of decorum, loud, and everything is a matter of great comedy or great drama. Which leads us to…

Third, that Stinkerbelle would bawl when the time came to say goodbye to Daddy and she realized we had to go without him. My kid is full-throated in her expression of emotion, and sorrow is expressed with great wailing and sobbing.

But I told her that if she calmed down and stopped crying, she could push the elevator buttons. And then I got her loaded in the car and off we went.

We were running late, and still had groceries to buy and a mission to find a white t-shirt for her school Christmas pageant. So I thought it best, since we were passing by anyway, to stop off at Corn Parking and buy some cookies. For BRIBE purposes.

She was already starting to melt down from hunger and tired by the time we got her into Corn Parking, and was (by Stinkerbelle’s standards, anyway) a little obnoxious. So I managed to keep her from touching everything long enough to buy a couple of groceries and a pack of cookies, and we were back in the car on the way to the grocery store.

I kept a cookie in reserve for the grocery store, just in case. But by then, her belly was full enough of cookie goodness that she was in good spirits, and told ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE SHE ENCOUNTERED about her morning’s adventures. The dentist, the crying, the cookie… she told everyone.

But we made it though without incident, although the t-shirt shopping is going to have to wait for another day. And now, we are home, and I have plonked her down to have a picnic in front of Curious George, which I said she could watch so long as she ate all her lunch.

Yeah, another bribe. Seems on busy days like this, you can’t get through without a few choice bribes. But at least her teeth are clean.