Birthday Adventures

Drake’s and my semi-annual dentist appointment happened to fall on his birthday. He was an exemplary patient, and chose cookie dough flavored tooth polish, and bubble gum flavored fluoride treatment. I was gagging inside, but he seemed to really like them.

Did you know that the fluoride treatments in the trays are only 1 minute each, top and bottom? I remember them as endless misery from my childhood, or at least thirty minutes. I asked the assistant how long they were when we were kids. She said they were five minutes each. I think there are two possibilities. One, that my childhood mind magnified the experience since I found it so unpleasant. Or two, my childhood hygienist took the opportunity to go have a smoke and read a magazine, and just returned when she felt like it, leaving me soaking in nasty goo far longer than necessary. While I suspect the latter, maybe she was doing me a favor. I’ve only ever had one cavity, and every time I go to the dentist they gush over my teeth, which is strangely affirming to my esteem.

Since we had the morning to ourselves, I tried to make an adventure of it:

Child tooth cleaning: $101
Used book store: $20 + $1.48 for Magic Tree House #2–Drake’s birthday book.
Children’s store: $12 for clothes, $.27 for a birthday Matchbox car
Noodles & Co: $14.50
Ben & Jerry’s: $4.50
Morning spent happily tooling around with my 4yo, who was listening and not yelling: priceless.

3 Responses to “Birthday Adventures”

  1. Kate Says:

    I am sorry, but there’s no way that treatment was only five minutes long. It was long and yucky and gross and I couldn’t wait till whatever birthday it was when I didn’t have to have them anymore (12? 16?). Even given a child’s perspective, it had to have been at least 10-15 minutes. Each.

  2. Sydney Says:

    I, too, remember the fluoride treatments at Dr. P’s office lasting forever. Also, the torture of having to wait a FULL HOUR after the treatment before we could walk across the street to Friendly’s for a butter crunch ice cream cone. (our prize from Mom for being such good little girls.)

    However, I concur that we seem to have fabulous teeth as a result. I have had 4 cavities, but mostly during my teen/braces years, and none since my 26th birthday. Hooray for good oral hygiene!

  3. girldetective Says:

    Maybe ALL our hygienists were out back smoking and reading magazines and chortling to themselves.

    And Drake only had to wait 30 minutes till he could eat and drink, so we whiled that away in the bookstore and kids store.

    Kids these days have it SO easy.