Shark tooth

A few weeks ago Ava woke up in the morning and informed me it felt like she had something stuck in her gum and she needed to floss it out. I looked and immediately saw that her permanent tooth was coming in behind her baby teeth that were only slightly wiggly. Oh dear...this happened to me as a kid too, I knew right away what was going to happen (when I was 5 years old I had 2 teeth removed for the same reason...my mom tells the story frequently of how I kissed the dentist when he was done pulling my teeth because I was so excited for the tooth fairy. And apparently, I was boy crazy at 5 years old ;-))

So, we made an appointment with the dentist. saw them last week and they informed us that yes indeed Ava would need to have 2 teeth pulled for sure, but that they actually recommended pulling all 4 lower front teeth, because it was likely we'd be back for the other 2 soon enough.

Today was the day. Ava worked really hard at getting one of the wiggly teeth out on her own before the appointment (3 apples a day) but it still held on. Rami even offered to pay her in cash whatever we would pay the dentist if she could pull it out herself before they pulled it. No luck!

Ava was excited today. Apparently, in 1st grade you get to bring home the tooth bag when you loose a tooth. So, that's always fun. Then of course...there's the whole blood thing. Ava gets very excited when you mention some sort of bodily extraction. The possibility of blood being present delights her and her eyes light up. The more medical interventions the better as far as she's concerned.

She goes back and sits in the dentist's chair while they give her some strawberry scented Nitrous Gas through a mask. She did have lots of questions for me in the car regarding the mask, the smell, the pain factor etc. She said she was nervous and excited.

I had to wait in the lobby. About 6 minutes into the procedure I heard screaming. Oh geez...I started crying. Poor poor girl, I was so distressed. A dad in the waiting room commiserated with me and told me to hang in there. I was crying. My poor girl, she's so excited by medical stuff and now this will ruin it for her. 35 minutes of screaming torture, agony later....

Ava emerges with a great big smile, a wad of gauze and a small box containing 4 teeth. What?!?! Wait?!?! It wasn't her screaming...it was some kid getting a cleaning. LOL! Toughen up dude...

We removed the gauze for a picture and Ava caught her first glimpse of blood...she exclaimed "can I have a blood sample?" She's a riot, I swear!

I took her to Subway (salad and water) and Xtreme Frozen Yogurt (where she scored us both free yogurt by showing the owner her 4 holes in her mouth) for lunch and now she's resting on the couch, saying her chin feels weird and tingly.