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Orthodontics – The 2nd journey begins #LaurenGoFar #LaurenOrtho

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Our children were destined to need braces. Both Craig and I had braces when we were teenagers.

In April 2018, Rachel started her orthodontics journey. The estimated time for her treatment was one year. She had a bit of crowding that needed to be fixed and a little bit of an overbite. Dr. Bozek put on Rachel’s braces on April 18th and the current estimation is May 2019 to have them removed. Seems like just yesterday she was losing her first tooth!

Lauren was told that she needed to wait a year; she had to lose the rest of her baby teeth. In November, Lauren lost her last tooth. We called Dr. Bozek and set up an appointment. 

March 11th, the day after Lauren’s 12th birthday, we met with Dr. Bozek again. They took new x-rays and photos. They came up with a plan.

The plan.

Lauren’s treatment plan is going to take 2 years. Her little mouth has so much going on in there. 

The teeth on the top need the most treatment. The molars need to be moved outward. This allows more space to move the teeth at the front so that they are straight.

You can see the top molars on the right side are inside the molars on the bottom.

To move the molars outwards, they will be installing a pallet expander. 

But before they can do that, they had to put in spacers. These do exactly what they sound like they do. They create space between the molars. They need this space to put bands around her teeth that hold the expander.

Step 1: Spacers

Yesterday was the first step in her orthodontics journey. Lauren was nervous, but she climbed into the chair. She was in the middle chair and she carefully watched the two girls in the chairs beside her: one was getting fitted for her retainer and the other was getting a mould. Lauren was going to have to do this as well.

She said the mould material tasted like marshmallows and that it wasn’t that bad.

Orthodontics - Spacers

With Lauren’s dental history (6 cavities when she was only 6), I wasn’t surprised when the ortho technician told me that she flinched a little when she went to put the spacer in. Lauren is very hesitant when to comes to any dental stuff as she’s worried that it will hurt like getting cavities filled.

In the end, they were done and she was excited that they were turquoise. (I’ll post again about why.)

loosing teeth is way too stressful

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“And Q, R, S, and loose-tooth T.
Then U, V, W wiggle, jiggle free.”
~ Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by
John Archambault and Bill Martin Jr.

You would think that after loosing 4 teeth, she would have mastered the technique of removing a loose tooth that is dangling ever so precariously by a thread.

Sunday morning, her tooth was loose.  During church it has started bleeding.  We noticed after after church that  it was very ready to come out.

I was worried about it coming out and her accidentally swallowing it, so we encouraged her to take it out herself.  She said it hurt so we didn’t push the issue.

Over the afternoon, we reminded her to try to get her tooth out.  No such luck.

After dinner, we explained to her that she needed to take it out before she went to bed because tomorrow (meaning today, Monday) she was going to be at the splash pad for her field trip and it wouldn’t be good it it was to get knocked out there.  We gave her a few bits of ‘motivation’….the promise of ice creams and playing on BigDaddy’s iPad.  She agreed with us, but was still very nervous.  There were tears and cuddled needed from BigDaddy.

The only teeth I remember loosing were the 4 eye teeth that the denist ripped from my face when I was 12.  It was  horrible experience and I still ended up needing braces.  I won’t tell Munchkin this story until she’s much much older.  I can only hope that because I can’t remember the others, that it was a fairly easy experience.

I wish that this was easier for her.

She and I went upstairs to see what was going on with that tooth.  She let me look at it and it was really, really loose.  Finally with one extra wiggle, it came out.  She was so excited and was yelling “Daddy! Daddy!” as she ran downstairs.
Then she smiled her big tooth-less smile!
“I did it Daddy! My tooth is gone”
(translation…Mommy did it but I’m taking credit for it because I let her do it)

Peanut gives her a big hug and says “Yay!! I love you Muchnkin! We can have ice cream now!”

We can only hope that Peanut is still movitivated by food (particulary ice cream) when it comes time to help her with her loose teeth.



I would love some suggestions on how to make sure the next lost tooth is met with less anxiety.  What do you do with your kids??

look up!

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(blog365: 111/365)

For the last few days Peanut has been clingy, whiny, fussy, screachy but generally okay. I figured she is teething. Today her head was warm to the touch and her cheeks have been flushed. Definately teeth. She’s got 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom so the other two on the bottom had to be coming.

For some reason, I looked at Peanut’s upper gums. Low and behold, TWO new molars. TWO!!!

Guess I know now why she was fussy.

2 molars at once!?!

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When it rains, it pours, right? Tho it is funny I say that since yesterday, it actually did rain (and the river in our basement returned).

Since Munchkin got up at 7:30 yesterday morning, we took a drive to Diaper-Eez to pick up some larger diaper covers. While in the car, Munchkin pulled off her hat as she usually does. I said “Munchkin, why must you pull off your hat?” She then put her hand to her head and said “hat”.

Jeremy came over to hang out and watch movies. He brought sausages and macaroni salad for lunch too! Munchkin didn’t nap very long so having an extra person to entertain her worked well.

Jeremy left around 2ish, which gave Hubby and I time to finish getting ready to go out. Hubby’s parents arrived at 5 for dinner. Hubby had made pork roast with veggies, potatoes and garlic bread. It was so yummy. After dinner, I got Munchkin ready for bed early since she hadn’t napped, and we had to get to Terry’s surprise 40th B-day.

The weather was horrible. It had started as snow mid afternoon, but by the time Hubby’s parents arrived, it had turned to freezing rain. We got to the party on time, and Terry was very surprised. We spent the night mingling with Terry and Hubby’s co-workers.

By the time we left, it was just raining. We arrived home to find Hubby’s mom rocking Munchkin. She had woken up and wouldn’t go back to sleep. It took me a while of rocking and trying to put her down to recognize the “I’m in pain, Mommy” cry.

I checked her gums…and voila! A molar cutting though. Oh, wait! There’s another! Poor thing. I wouldn’t be able to sleep either. So a dose of Tylenol and some Orajel should to the trick. Um. No.

So 1am, I bring the obviously tired, in pain, little girl to bed with me. There was no way i was going to sleep in the rocking chair. She went right to sleep. Around 5:30 she woke up, but was still tired. So back to her room we went, rocked in the chair and she was asleep enough to be put back in her crib. Thank goodness she slept until 8:30!

She’s napping now and has been for a hour. After she wakes, we’re heading to Jeremy’s house for the Superbown and his birthday celebrations! Ummm…cake!