Chains Can Be Rather Amusing

I'm pretty sure I mentioned here before that we are not the parents who put braces on their kids teeth to straighten that slight imperfection. I'm not knocking those who do - each to his own. We just don't have insurance to pay for it, and have better things to spend our money on than a dazzling smile.

That's probably why our kids have the teeth that they do. While we're okay with making our kids suffer through life with less than fakely perfect teeth, we are not down with teeth that need correction because they'll cause medical problems in the future otherwise. Luke had braces at the age of 9. (I also have a problem with braces before all the baby teeth are out, but see above where it was a medical necessity.) (Daggun it.)

We have always been quite proud of Josh's teeth. His actually look like they've gone through the braces ordeal already, but it's just good genetics. We thought that right up until his bi-yearly dental appointment. He was due for x-rays, and that's when things started going a bit sour. Turns out, at the age of 14.5, he never lost his eye teeth. Neither were they loose. And the big teeth had very little intention of going anywhere, as they were quite happy deeply embedded right where they were. And in their happy state, they were sharply angled toward the front of his mouth; certainly not in line to come straight down into holes vacated by pulling the baby teeth. Which we did.

So now Josh has two holes in his smile, and I have a lot of questions. Will those reluctant adult teeth begin to move now that there's room for them? Will they straighten as they come in? And if not, will they push other teeth out of their way? What if they didn't come down?

Thankfully our dentist is fifteen kinds of awesome and answers all of my questions patiently and thoroughly. And in layman's terms as well. Here's the scoop: we'll give those vacancies six month to fill. If they do not, they will have to bring the teeth down manually. How? Good question! (And you know I asked it.) They will drill up to find those teeth, attach a gold chain to them, install braces, anchor the chain to the braces, and pull them right on down.

Being Parent of the Year, I laughed. Out loud. While my son had a needle in his mouth the size of my finger and was gripping the chair in pain. (He was undergoing the extractions as we happily discussed his future.) I laughed, because all I could think was, "It's an episode of Loggers, right there in his mouth." I'm an awesome parent that way.

This is a rather rare procedure, and therefore a cause of some excitement in the dental world. While the dentist was all matter of fact and low key about it, his aid started waxing eloquent on the gold chain and levels of discomfort. While I may be the worst parent ever for laughing at futuristic maybes, I don't want the boy freaked out before he needs to be. (He's a brave one, that boy, but still. It's common sense. You know?) I motioned for her to cut the excited discussion short, and changed the subject by telling Becky why I was laughing.

Turns out, she was laughing herself. She's envisioning her brother with a gold wallet chain thing going on in his mouth. And I fear she's correct. But we've got 6 months, and I have faith that those teeth will straighten and gravity will help them do what they're meant to do naturally. Because otherwise, I'm going to have to pay through the nose for what little bit of merriment we're going to get out of seeing those chains.

josh's teeth - gold chain, hook to and pull them out - either loggers in his mouth or gang wallet chain