tough love

G's adult teeth were coming in and the dentist said if he didn't get the baby teeth out in 2 weeks, they'd like to extract them.  For various motivations, I wanted to pull them out at home.  I hope this doesn't become the norm for him. 

Going through this process and waiting it out with him has been hard.  How much easier to take him to the dentist and have it done behind closed doors.  But I knew it would be a situation where he'd have to be strapped to a table and have strangers pull out both in one day.   This way he had a whole week of tooth pulling!  Fun! 

Last Sunday I got one started with some nice gross crackling feeling.  It wasn't 'til Wednesday night, with Dad at church, that I, after 2 hours of G hiding, pulled out the first one.  That left the other one not even loose.  Joy.

So we've been talking about it and encouraging M to hit him in the face... jK 

Tonight, Sunday, I told him I was calling the dentist in the morning, so this was his last chance.  In reality there is still more time because I have no idea if the dentist could even get us in for months.  But apparently I'm compulsive and wanted to get his baby teeth out so the permanent teeth could get out.  And the adult teeth were coming in fast.   So the longer we waited, the harder it would be to get a good grip on the baby teeth.

Tough love, poor boy.  I know it's generally used to describe withholding financial support for drug addicts until they are in rehab.  In this instance, I feel that we were doing something hard, because we felt it would be better for him, emotionally, in the long run.

P came in and talked to him for twenty minutes, on top of the twenty I'd already spent trying to get him to open up.  Eventually P said he had a choice,  either Mom, Dad or the Dentist was going to pull the tooth.  G wouldn't decide.  So P told him that Dad was going to make the choice.  Dad held him down and Mom who already had some kinesthetic experience pulling teeth, pulled.  

Just when I thought it wasn't going to come out, and that after all this back and forth, we would still  end up at the dentist... it came out.  We got a cotton roll on it (saved from previous dental experiences; go hoarding! JK).  He spent a little more time being mad at us.  Within 5 minutes the bleeding was all done, and he was back to enjoying the big yellow book of questions from grandma C. 

Phew.  I hope the rest of his teeth come in the normal way that makes baby teeth fall out.  Please!