Gone Missing

It is snowing and Lauren is home eating vanilla ice cream and watching TV. Are you crazy? you ask - questioning my mothering skills. Don't blame me! Blame the dentist (specifically the oral surgeon) or at least his assistant. Confused?

This morning, Lauren got her H tooth pulled out since the #11 tooth had already erupted. H tooth is the baby tooth. Did you know that baby teeth have alphabetical designation and the permanent ones have numerical? (Just learned that today when the assistant was taking an X-ray of Lauren's snaggly tooth.) Anyhow, for awhile now, Lauren had been walking around with 2 teeth in the same spot. I likened her to a shark (sharks have rows and rows of teeth so that when one in the front falls out that back one moves in and eating recommence without delay).

Lauren was given nitrous oxide ("laughing gas")although she did not laugh at all -- just looked sleepy), a topical anesthetic (cherry flavored) and a shot of Novocaine. That part made me cringe a lot. Bleech. Fortunately, Lauren didn't feel it at all. She felt heavy and floaty at the same time. Then the oral surgeon (with mask and headlight on) took a shiny pliers and yanked that baby tooth out. (Could have done that myself with a needle nose pliers - but noooo, had to go to a professional). The whole procedure took about 20 minutes tops. The assistant gave us handfuls of gauze and told us to settle the bill with the receptionist - telling Lauren that she will be back with a "prize". The prize was a quart of vanilla ice cream. They probably have freezer full of those stuff in the back!

When I got my 2 molars out, I remembered lots of yanking and breakage and more yanking. I didn't get vanilla ice cream as a prize. I got zilch and, oh, a prescription for 2 kinds of painkillers that promptly made feel nauseous. I think I got the wrong doctor.

On the way home, Lauren was thumping on her left upper lip. She said that her left nostril was also numb. With a white gauze in her mouth and a slightly fat lip, she was a vision.