Xander's First Trip to the Dentist

On April 12, 2011 we took both boys to the dentist

The waiting room is awesome! There's a tree house play structure with a slide and toys for the kids to play with. The walls are all painted lime green and it's just a really fun atmosphere.

Here are the boys playing, Xander having NO idea what's about to happen.....

We let Michael go first with the hygienist, and Xander payed close attentionThen it was his turn with the hygienistHe was NOT impressed!

Then Michael met with the dentistAnd Xander got increasingly more cautiousThen Xander's turnI think you can tell just how well that was recieved!

But we all made it through it and their teeth look good and healthy!

That month we also got Xander into speech therapy. I knew he was still young, but I regret that we didn't Michael into speech earlier than we did, and I didn't want to regret it with Xander. So we got him evaluated and he qualified (but just barely) and has been seeing the same speech pathologist as Michael about 3 times a month. And if you see the side bar, his speech has ExPLODeD!

Michael's First Trip To The Dentist

I was so excited when I found out about the new Pediatric Dentristry that just opened up here in Rexburg, that I got Michael an appointment right away. We'd been wanting to take him for a while now (all children should go by their first b-day or soon after that) but there wasn't a dentist around who would look at him until he was at least 6 (wierd!). So we took him to the new dentist in town and it was great!!! Michael wasn't too willing to cooperate, but the dentist got inside anyway.

Here is Michael getting his X-rays done

A little apprehensive!
The dental assistance trying to get inside to clean his teeth....this didn't end up happening!! Before we left I was asking ever 5 seconds to open wide and show me his teeth. He was more than willing and very excited to show me. But when we put him down on that table, put the bib around him, and sat down to go to work, he would NOT open up! Not at all!!! He would purse him lips and wiggle so much that it was impossible. We tried everything!! The hygenist gave him some goodies to hold, we tried to get him to open up for the tooth brush, nothing would work. So she eventually gave up.
The dentist had much better luck! He was seriously so great with Michael and sat at the table talking to him for about 5 minutes before he even tried to get to work. He was making Michael laugh by asking him if he was a hippo, a giraffe, all kinds of silly nonsense things! Then he tried to get inside. Michael immediately took on his previously successful tactics and would not allow him in. So eventually the dentist had Nathan sit down with Michael on his legs. Then they laid Michael down onto the dentists lap and that was how he was able to look inside. Michael didn't get too annoyed until the very end, and even then he didn't scream, just kind of wimpered a bit.

Michael's teeth looked great and had no cavities. It does look Michael does grind them, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem. He even set our minds at ease about a certain tooth that is, basically, a fused tooth. It's a bit difficult to explain, but where most have 4 teeth on the bottom front, he only has 3, with a dent in in the third one, making it look like 4....like I said, difficult to explain! In the x-rays there are only 3 roots, so it looks like while the teeth were forming, they only created 3 roots and then one of the teeth realized it needed to be 2, so it started to split, but didn't split enough to look like 2. Anyway, it doesn't look like his adult teeth will have that problem, but we'll have to wait and see.

So we'll take him back in 6 months if we're still here and maybe next time he'll be more willing to open up and get his teeth cleaned!!!