open wide!

today elle went to the dentist. outside of visiting our friend dr. kesa, this was her first trip to a dentist for a teeth cleaning/x-rays. this pediatric dentist came recommended to us by our pediatrician. he sends his children to her and, well, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. turns out, dr. k delivered big time! pediatric dentist (dr. c) was awesome!

no matter how much we built this up and read to her about visiting the dentist, elle was not loving the whole experience. elle eventually came around and the visit ended well & with an x-ray (she did really well with this!). when we walked out elle had a beautiful tiara, ring, bag full of dental treats, a sticker chart - when it's full, she mails it in for a prize!, a balloon with her name and flowers drawn on it, along with a distorted view of how fabulous she did in the dental chair. if she weren't 3, my response would have been something like: "um. do you not remember the colossal meltdown you had for a solid 15 minutes? and then the one you had 10 minutes after the first one ended?" but since she's 3, my response was: "you were such a big girl!" (read: "you didn't sound half as horrific as the kid in the next room, thank you sweet Jesus").

you're probably wondering how her teeth are. they look good. she has one tooth that has no nerve vitality to it so there is a slight discoloration (due to one of her many face plants...we think the most recent one at the stock yards). there is nothing to worry about and the dentist thinks it won't affect the permanent tooth. in the x-rays, we could see one of the permanent teeth hiding out. pretty cool!

the girls took some photos of the whole hour and a half (that's right!).