AP Moment of the day ~ I do believe, I do believe...

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I took Jessie for a check up at the dentist today... She'd been to see a pediatric orthodontist recently and they had mentioned something about a tooth needing to be "wiggled out".... hmmm... sounds interesting. Just how do they DO this "Wiggling" ?? Erm, Yah. It's an extraction. It just sounds prettier that way... "wiggling"... anyhoo... she was supposed to be going to her regular pediatric dentist and they were going to see what needed to be done etc. No biggie. Jessie went back all by herself... it's an awesome office.. toys, TV's, child sized furniture.. all very open and airy, all light maple wood... and the staff are young and pretty... it's like a movie!!! So she went back all by herself, Happy As Larry. ( who IS Larry?!) Presently one of the techs came out to the waiting room where I was wrestling Jack to keep him in front of the fish tank and out of the dentists rooms... and she asked

"Did you want to go ahead with the extraction today?! "

Oh. Today. Hmmm.

I told her I doubted we'd swing that past Jessie given that she'd had no warning about it what so ever and she probably would not be very happy at the prospect. I told the woman I didn't care one way or the other if Jessie has straight teeth or not. They are her teeth, it's her mouth, and basically the choice could be hers. She's a smart girl. If they tell her why they think they want to take a tooth out and she thinks it's a good enough reason, she'll allow it, if not, she won't! I love giving her the power to make decisions regarding her self. So. That was my take on it. If they talk to her and she agrees to do it, then we'll do it. If not, she may wish to wait a while or to not do it at all. Fine by me too. Off the woman totters.

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Time passes.

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Jack grows weary of being a "good boy" and I offer him the option of waiting in the van if he can't wait nicely in the waiting room. Naturally I had nothing to offer the boy by way of amusements, unlike last time when I had a Leap Pad plus books, a Magna~ Doodle, 15 library books and an assortment of cars. This time... Nada. Blast. We look at the fish, we count the fish, we play with the beads on the wire... "What color is THIS bead?!? " etc....

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** sigh **

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Finally Jessie arrives! She's wearing a new T Shirt with the PD Dentist's name all over it and, oddly, a picture of a hippo with an unfortunate overbite, her cheeks look rather pink and swollen and she's got a mouthful of gauze. Poor kid! I give her a big hug and tell her how brave she was and the tech informs me that they have already given her a dose of Motrin as "you have a long drive to get home" (erm? 20 minutes??) and they informed me that I'd need to keep dosing her up with medicine for the night and into the next day. Huh.

I told Beans I'd take her to the Mecca that is Super Target and buy her anything she wanted to make up for the fact that the surgery was pretty much sprung upon her and after the bleeding stopped and she took out the gauze I asked her how it all went down. I told her I was proud of her for making the decision to have her tooth pulled. She began to shake her head.

"What do you mean? " I asked. "Didn't they ask you if you wanted to have it done?!"

"NO!!" She coughed. "They just did it. "

Bah. Now I'm steamed. I understand, I'm sure most kids would have said no if you asked them did they want a tooth pulled. But I do think it's wrong to just force your authority on a child in that way. Poor kid.

Anyway, the crux of it is Jessie is totally untraumatised by the whole thing. She couldn't choose a toy in Super Target so she said we'd just check online. Knowing her she'll forget all about it. We did pick up some chocolate puddings, chicken noodle soup and some yogurts and she enjoyed the heck out of all three!!!

The biggest thrill for her is she gets another visit from the Tooth Fairy! She's written a long letter to her and asked her how her Christmas was! She explained that this tooth was short notice as it hadn't been loose and asked her if she was watching her!!! ** grin** !!! I love my kid. I love that she loves the tooth fairy and though she looks at me some times and says "Is it YOU!?!?" she wants the fairy to be real and I am not going to take that away from her.

Tonight the fairy will sprinkle her magic dust, leave a dollar coin or two and maybe will write a little note in tiny fairy writing telling her how brave she is and how much we hope people will someday give her a little more respect.