The Dentist

So...  Ryan is three and has had a rough go of it so far.  He started in the NICU when he was born, where he spent two weeks.  When he was about 18 months, he fell and broke one of his front teeth.  When he was 20 months he lost a fight with a truck.  And now at three, his two front teeth are completely dead and are full of infection.  Lovely right? 

Our little Ryan is a trooper though- he kept telling me that he didn't feel very good- but I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him.  He kept telling me that nothing was wrong with his ears, nose, throat, tummy, or head.  Where else do you look??  One morning he about went through the roof when I was brushing his teeth and I found an abscess above his left front tooth.  So I took him into the dentist, where we found out that Ryan had two options.  We could either pull the teeth and he would have a space for a few years, or we could do a baby root canal on both teeth and it MIGHT save the teeth.  Though if we decided to go with the root canal, Ryan would have to sit in the dentist's chair for 3-4 hours.  Do any of you have three year olds?  Would yours sit through that?  I know mine wouldn't.  Anyway- I couldn't justify spending the money for a root canal on a baby tooth that was going to fall out anyway.  Maybe I'm wrong.  But I told the dentist to pull the teeth.  

Ryan laid back in the chair and the dentist pulled out his little gas mask (I couldn't believe how tiny it was- it was so cute!).  Ryan balked a little- but once we decided that it made him look like an X-Wing fighter from Star Wars- Dr. Marberger was good to go.  Ryan thought it was so cool and he spent the rest of the appointment trying to shoot the dentist with his "Missiles."  

 And about a half an hour later- Ryan had no front teeth.  I was a little afraid that he was going to look like a hillbilly... but it's actually kind of cute.

 He was stoked when he found out he could put his diseased little teeth under his pillow for the tooth fairy that night.  Ryan was so jealous of Ty when Ty started losing his teeth last Christmas- now it was his turn.  Admittedly the Tooth Fairy wanted to give Ryan more than the dollar she usually gives just because Ryan had to have them pulled, but her office manager reminded her that it probably wasn't fair to the other kids in the house.

It has now been a few days since we pulled the teeth and I cannot believe the difference in Ryan.  He is finally acting like his old self.  Even his color is better (like the whites of his eyes and the color of his skin)- he  looks and acts like a healthy (albeit a little skinny) three year old.  Woohoo!!  And it is kind of nice not to look at those front teeth any more!