Monday, October 6, 2008

Little Hannibal


Well, Little Smoot had her most recent dental appointment the other day, and it went a little better than normal, considering that during her last couple visits she managed to barf all over the dentist’s office. For regular visits, the kids go to a part of the office called the “Rainbow Room,” and Little Smoot definitely created a lovely rainbow for them during those past visits.

In an attempt to make the visit as obnoxious and as uncomfortable as possible, the dental hygienist ladies give the kids fluoride treatments. Back in my day, they used to just give us these little pink pills at school, and that seemed to adequately take care of our fluoride needs. But now, in order to administer this stuff, they fit the kids with these nasty mouth guard things, which are covered in some sort of horrible goo, and the kids have to hold this in their mouths for several minutes.

The result is that my child winds up looking like a 10-year-old version of Hannibal Lecter, unable to speak for several minutes with this terrible thing jammed into her mouth. And it triggers her gag reflex, which means that after a few disturbing grunting noises, she’ll dramatically demonstrate to the hygienist ladies that she really isn’t enjoying herself.

The last time she barfed at the dentist, the woman looked at me as if I should be upset at her for throwing up. Frankly, I was kinda wishing she had eaten an even larger lunch just to make a stronger point.

This time, I saw the lady starting to prepare the Hannibal Lecter thing, and I put a stop to it for the sake of Little Smoot’s happiness and for the sake of the sanitary condition of the office. So we had a much more uneventful visit this time.

1 comment:

Hoosaid Dat said...

That's a better pixure of you than the one in the hat . . . :+)