Friday marked the end of my first full week of maternity leave — and what an eventful week it’s been! We scaled back Dylan’s pre-school hours to just 1 1/2 days, so he’s been with me for most of the week.
Since my best friend Heather’s parents are also retiring in California and were moving this week, she was also extremely busy. To help each other out, we started the week by swapping a couple of hours of babysitting on Monday. I took the kids in the morning and she took them in the afternoon (so I could finish up some loose ends from work); Tuesday morning was spent with Heather while the afternoon was a half-day at pre-school (once again, I used my free time on work tasks); Wednesday was my doctor’s appointment followed by the Circus and rides with Heather and gals at the Boardwalk; Thursday I finally hung up my work hat and started anxiously preparing for impending child birth (which, of course, has not yet happened!) while Dylan spent the day at school (it was his share day and I heard he shared his guitar very well!); and Friday, oh Friday…We took Dylan to get his first tooth filling ever.
The dentist strongly recommended Dylan get the laughing gas, so we gave it a shot. He was very patient when they fitted the mask over his nose, but we could all tell he was a bit uncomfy with having it there, so they went ahead and took it off.
The dentist was very concerned that Dylan not have a negative experience there, so she explained that if she couldn’t finish the procedure without the “magic air,” she would just just try to drill out the cavity and patch it up with some extra-strength fluoride….We were also worried that Dylan wouldn’t sit through it, but wouldn’t you know? He was a total trooper!
The dentist was very good at “introducing” her tools to him — the air blower, the water squirter, the polisher, drill, etc. — and she would test out the sensation on his arms and hands before she used them in his mouth. Even with some expectation of sound and sensation, Dylan was still jumpy. Every time he heard one of the tools get fired up, he would start a little.
Luckily, though, Tom and I were able to stay with him the whole time and I could hold his hands and provide some reassurance that he was ok. He never cried or tried to squirm away although he was visibly uncomfortable at several points (they even used a tool to prop his mouth open and would periodically go in there to suck up the saliva and to blow his teeth dry again).
At one point, when they were giving him a break — the dentist would always tell him she’d count to 10 and then give him a break — he tried to get up and he asked, “am I done yet?” But when we said not yet, he obediently lay back down again.
After the drilling ended (luckily, this was brief), the doctor explained that she’d gotten all of the “bugs” out of his mouth and he responded by telling her that when he sees a bug, he says, “shoo fly, don’t bother me”! At another point, the dentist had a piece of “tape” — “kinda like floss but thicker” — between his two front teeth and he asked, “how can I eat with this tape in my mouth??” That made all of us in the room smile!
Once the filling was in, the surface of his teeth was still a bit bumpy and rough. He felt around it with his tongue and made some comment on how it felt funny, then he patiently waited while the dentist smoothed his teeth out and polished them. He was such a trooper, he got 2 balloons in addition to his normal prize.
Afterwards, we went to Coffeetopia for some steamed soy milk, attended our Music Together class with Taliana and then we all stopped briefly at our house for a bite of lunch before heading out for yet another afternoon of rides at the Boardwalk!
What a week it’s been!
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