Raising Maine

It was the big day... the day that Robby, 7 1/2, started his orthodontia.

It is indeed an early age for braces, but the poor kid has a tall narrow palate that already has his new front teeth fighting for space. That and a crossbite make it necessary to expand his upper jaw so that his bite will match and so that those crowded top teeth will have a place to go.

He was a little nervous, but he was an absolute trooper as he followed the dental assistant into the procedure room. It seemed like it was only a matter of minutes before the assistant came back to call me into the room where my little one was sobbing quietly and drooling just a little. He was feeling a little gaggy like he couldn't swallow.

...All normal at first, the orthodontist told me... his tongue needed a day or two to get used to sharing the mouth with a spider shaped piece of metal.

Then he gave me directions on how to tighten the apparatus nightly with a little key.



It's a slow and steady process, but we should see progress within a month's time, and it may all be over in as little as 6-9 months. At any rate, the orthodontist promised Robby, if he lets us tighten it every night, the whole thing will be a memory by this time next year. Even better, it should reduce substantially any time he'll need to spend in braces in his teen years (when, presumably, he'll be more self conscious) and save us money in the long run.

His only real post-dentist office trauma occurred on the way home when he realized that he won't be able to eat 99% of what he'll find in his Halloween basket this year. I know he'll miss it, but I don't think he'll tempted to cheat on his no-sticky-food diet... he's already figured out just how much regular food sticks to his expander, and he's in no hurry to add to that inconvenience.

Robby's always been our little showman, and in spite of how annoying it is to have a chunk of metal clamped onto four of his teeth, Robby is finding it a source of humor that he now has to worry about food getting stuck between the expander and the roof of his mouth during every meal and that words like "Cheese" come out a bit more like "sheesh" than they used to. We are told that his speech should improve once his tongue figures out the new patterns of movement necessary to move around the device. In the meantime, though, he keeps trying to say ridiculously hard tongue twisters that his big brother makes up for him, and then the two of them belly laugh until they cry.

As a treat, we stopped to see Eartha and poke around the Delorme Store on the way home (my kids absolutely love that shop), and Robby was so happy to have the fitting behind him that he did a little dance to some Latin rhythms they were playing. So much for long term trauma.



What a guy, eh?