I was the mom brushing my son’s gums with that silly finger sock when he was an infant. We brushed diligently with the toddler toothbrush. As he got older, I read all there was to read in the parenting books about dental care. I followed his doctor’s instructions to take him in to the Dentist at age three. And then P’s dental life changed. We learned the hard way that:
- Children should go in for their first dental exam at the age one to catch any developing problems.
- Babies and toddlers really do need to see a pediatric dentist.
- Diet and dental care are not all that is important.
- Medications can be terrible on your child’s teeth.
The first time he lost a tooth was fun. The second time he lost a tooth we were in Mexico so the Tooth Fairy and el Ratoncito Pérez came while he was sleeping. A few more came out naturally and then things changed. By the time P turned seven, he had crowns, fillings, and one tooth pulled. It was a dramatic (wailing and gnashing of teeth) experience when he learned the Tooth Fairy doesn’t come when the tooth comes out because he didn’t take care of it. Last week he had a second tooth pulled. This time it wasn’t his fault (a filling came out and it made more sense to pull the baby tooth than fill it again).
After having his second tooth pulled he went to work writing a letter to the Tooth Fairy about his pulled tooth. He folded up the letter, sealed it in an envelope and taped (with electrical tape) the two pulled teeth to the outside of the envelope. He included the first pulled tooth because he thought maybe the Tooth Fairy forgot to bring money last time. When he finally fell asleep, I wrote a long letter (there’s always time to squeeze in more reading opportunities!) from the Tooth Fairy and slipped it back in the envelope with a handful of coins (there’s always time to squeeze in a little math!) and put it back under his pillow. The letter from the Tooth Fairy came with a bit of a dental care lecture; I tried to make up for some of the dental damage we had done early in his life.
As P read the letter from the Tooth Fairy the next morning, he didn’t see the “subtle” lecture that came with the money. He only saw that there was an actual letter from the Tooth Fairy and a bunch of coins to count, stack, and re-count and I started to feel a little better about the damage unknowingly done to his teeth early in his life. I wonder what Parental Failure #548 will be…
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I’m still second guessing things I did with Nathan. The gulit never rests.
I’m coming to realize the guilt will always be there, but I’m okay with the mistakes I’ve made as long as the positive experiences and things we did right outweigh the mistakes.