Wait . . I thought the dentist was suppossed to be fun?

Today I told Hailey that she was having a "Mommy Day" because she got to stay home from school and we would watch movies and drink chocolate milk all day.  She was super excited about that.  Then I told her that first we had to go to the dentist and let him fix her teeth.  She loves going to the dentist because they "tickle her teeth" and she gets to pick out a prize from the treasure box.  Well . . . at her last visit, the dentist said she needed to get some fillings done and a silver cap put on one of her teeth because she had ground it down so much.  He said she would need to be sedated in order to give her all of the shots necessary to numb the six areas he was working on.  Wow!   I have never yet had a child need to get fillings like this before.  So, this morning Hailey couldn't eat or drink anything before the appointment and we got there around 8:15 a.m.  She had to drink the sedation juice (which she thought tasted Yucky!) then she and I had to wait in a special room for about one hour for the medicine to take full effect.

Here is Hailey getting her vitals taken.  She is about to drink the "yucky" juice.

 It was actually a wonderful hour for me to spend with Hailey.  We played with toys, read stories, then I got to rock her in a really comfortable rocking chair as she began to get a little sleepy.  She started saying really wierd things like, "Mom, where do carrots come from?" just randomly as we were reading stories.  It was so fun to snuggle and hold her like I used to when she was a baby.  She is way too active now and I only get to hold her for about a minute or so, then she is off wiggling around or doing something else.  (So, I was actually looking forward to today's appointment!)

Here is Hailey resting in the dental chair.  She wore flip flops but wanted to take them off.  She also got to breathe "bubble gum air" through the nose piece.  Ooh--yummy!

 When Dr. Quackenbush (love him and his staff!) came in to see her, he said, "Hailey, are you doing ok?"  She said, "Hey, do I sound like a boy?  I think I sound like a boy?"  He said to me, "Yep---the medicine is kicking in just fine!"  ha ha!  He and his assistant worked like a well-oiled machine handing instruments back and forth.  I was mesmerized watching how efficiently they worked and with such precision.  It was so nice to know my little girl was well taken care of.  I am bringing their office some lunch on Thursday to thank them for being so incredible.

Here is Hailey---all finished.  You can see her silver cap on the bottom right of the picture.

She fell asleep on the way home but boy is she smart---right when we got home, she woke up and went into my bathroom and wanted to look at her teeth.  She gasped, "Oh my gosh!  I have a silver tooth!  I didn't know I was getting a silver tooth!!!"  We have really had to work through that one today.  It's about 3:15 p.m. and she just said to me, "Mom, I still don't like my silver tooth."  This is going to take some time . . .