Tooth Fairy Politics

I took my daughter, Ella, in to the dentist last night to repair a cracked filling in one her right molars and to have them take a look at the strange alien growing on the left side of her gums. I figured we'd be in for about twenty minutes and back in the car for the half hour drive home and barn chores before dinner, homework, bedtime and an overnight visit from a long lost friend of mine.

The alien, it turns out, was a quick growing abscess and the molar on the right side of her gums hadn't lost a filling. It had lost a peice of itself. Tucked up into her gums on both sides of her mouth were adult molars just dying to break through the surface and apparantly using whatever means possible to make their entry possible.

I don't entirely trust dentists. I try to trust dentists but I haven't had much of an opportunity yet to put it all into practice. My first neighborhood dentist used to call me nasty names when I would squirm in the chair. I finally convinced my parents that the guy was a schlep and so they took me to the dentist in my Nan's neighborhood. This guy was great. He had big white teeth, a dimple in his chin, he smelled good and had familiar cartoon characters painted all over the place. Two years into our mouth relationship, he was arrested and convicted for murdering his wife and staging a burglary gone bad. My grandmother still swears his innocence. She obviously stands by the neighborhood dentist as devoutly as she stands by her president. It's kind of sad.
The third dentist used so much filling that he caused such severe nerve damage that I now have an empty hole where the tooth used to be. Plucking the thing was much more affordable than the root canal and cap would have been.

SO, once I found our new dentist here in Vermont, I was willing to drive halfway across the state for the security of trusting the tooth man. It was a tiny little office close to Lake Champlain. Close to the Canadian border. His wife was a black and white photographer and her beautiful pictures were hung all over the place. The front desk lady had a different hair color every time we visited and they always called the night before to remind us of the appointment and to tell us to drive safe.
Unfortunatly, he's just retired and sold his practice.
The new guy calls novacaine "sleepy juice" and I just so badly wanted to pull him aside and tell him that my little girl will probably like him alot better ~ respond to him better, anyway ~ if he just calls things as they are. If he doesn't sugar coat the bad news.

So, the long and short is that Ella had two teeth plucked by the time we left the office. Two molars, one on each side, neither of which had been even remotely loose. My stoic, proud long legged hero actually screamed and sobbed at the first pull and my momma bear-ness wanted to drop kick the pliers out of his hand. The best I could do really is to hold her ankle while he gave her more "sleepy juice" (four times as much as it turned out) and coach her through it. By the time bed time rolled around she was cartwheeling around the kitchen at the arrival of our long lost friend.