Visit from the Tooth Fairy

The tooth fairy paid us a visit last night. It was a little sooner than I would have liked, but the dentist said the tooth had to go. You might recall that Malloy fell and hit her teeth on the bathtub last November. We went to the dentist and it seemed like everything was going to be okay. Her two front teeth turned slightly grey, but it wasn't too noticable. We even went back to the dentist last spring and everything still looked good. A couple of weeks ago, we went in for a cleaning and they told me that one of Malloy's front teeth had developed an abscess and would have to be pulled. You can imagine how I felt about the fact that my sweet little 3 year old was going to be a snaggletooth until her permanent tooth grows in (around age 5-6). I explored all the options, and unfortunately, there aren't any good ones for fake teeth for toddlers. My dentist said if she had lost all four front teeth (yikes!) they can make false teeth, but when it is just one tooth it is really difficult to attach and it usually looks really obviously like a fake tooth. A friend of mine who is an orthodontist offered to make a fake tooth on a retainer for "special occassions" and pictures. I might just take him up on the offer. Again, the drawback is that she would outgrow it every 6 months or so. You can't trust a teenager to keep track of a retainer so I don't think giving one to a 3 year old would be a great option either. Fortunately, we just had some professional pictures taken and her school pictures were last week too.

I know that the pending tooth extraction was much more stressful for me than Malloy. She had to take penicillin for 10 days which was traumatic for both of us - she is a REALLY uncooperative medicine taker. Then, leading up to the appointment I was very anxious about how she would react to the sedation and whether it would be painful. She handled it like a champ. The hardest part was not letting her eat or drink anything before her 9:30 appointment. When we got to the dentist office, she eagerly followed the hygienist to the back of the office and Kyle and I were left wondering and waiting in the lobby. They came out several times and said she was doing great and talking up a storm. She was telling the dentist about how there are "no boys allowed" on the playground when she is playing. They gave her "silly juice" (Versed) and laughing gas (Nitrous) and then a couple of "bubbles" (injections of Novocain) in her gums. Apparently she didn't even know they gave her shots and continued talking throughout the injections and the actual extraction. The tooth was a little loose from the injury and the dentist told me she just wiggled and pulled it right out. When they were done, Kyle went back and got her and she picked out some prizes and got her tooth in a little pink tooth shaped box. She was running her tongue over the spot where her tooth was, but I am not sure she knew that it was missing from her mouth.

She was a little loopy from the drugs, so I took a video of her once we got home. She was, for the most part, cooperative but a little bit mean when she didn't get what she wanted. At one point, she couldn't get her Barbie to sit down and she was yelling at it and biting it. She also tried to bite me when she didn't have her way, but after a late afternoon nap she was back to her old self.

Above, a picture of Malloy with her tooth fairy pillow before bed.