Anxiety to start the day is never a good thing, but there was plenty of it on Monday at my house.
One source of the apprehension was the fact there was no school and Pam and I both had to work. All working families juggle that. The bigger worry was a dentist appointment Beckett had that morning.
He was supposed to have a mini-root canal due to a cavity in a baby tooth. Because he doesn’t like to miss school and there was no pain, we waited weeks for the appointment. After his previous appointment, he was told what the procedure would entail and that he couldn’t eat or drink for two hours prior.
Fast forward to the night before the appointment, it was as if he had no recollection of the coming dentist appointment, despite nightly reminders to brush well so there wouldn’t be any more reasons to face what was ahead at his next dentist appointment. In hindsight, I probably should have refrained from saying “drill” when trying to scare him into being a conscientious brusher until the procedure was over.
On Sunday night, I reminded him he would have to get up early the next morning if he wanted to have breakfast before his 9 a.m. appointment. He opted to eat afterwards so he could sleep in on a day off from school.
It was at that point it suddenly hit him that he would be spending, or at least starting, his day off from school at the dentist’s office. The fear of the unknown, especially pain, resulted in some extreme emotions. It was to the point he was having a hard time falling asleep.
By the time the appointment rolled around the next morning, I was beginning to wonder if I was going to be carrying him in kicking and screaming. That brought on flashbacks from a time when I had to do just that when he was a toddler for an immunization appointment. Even at 2 years old back then, he was quite feisty.
When we pulled up to the doctor’s office, he made me proud. He just wanted to get it over with. I was on the same page. The problem with that approach was we had to wait an hour before we were called back. That delay allowed his mind and fear of the unknown to work him back into a tizzy like the night before.
Once called back, he showed great maturity. He actually reached out and held my hand as we walked back. As a 9-year-old with a mean independence streak, he rarely holds hands with his parents anymore.
As he took in his surroundings and rattled off questions, he got some good news. Since the tooth with the cavity was loose, it could just be removed. There was no need for the more complicated procedure. He seemed relieved and was especially so once the nitrous oxide kicked in. He’s a talkative child, but this took it to another level. There were lots of raised eyebrows and giggles from the adults in the room when he was clearly feeling no pain.
When the conversation quickly went south and got weird, I had to video him so Pam could share in the enjoyment later. He led us on a mysterious and winding verbal road that touched on a number of subjects, including Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, Ray Lewis as the “best trucker” of all time, how his teachers were nice but expected a lot, his dad was 42 years old, his mom’s age, his weight, his dad’s weight, an explanation as to why his hips were getting chapped, his height, my height, why he was so cold, questioning if he would ever be able to feel his fingers, why Despicable Me on the television above him was turned off (it wasn’t), how he doesn’t nap anymore and whether the tooth fairy would come for a pulled tooth.
Within a couple hours, he was back to himself and feeling fine.
He didn’t like the video I took of him under the influence of nitrous, however.
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Word searches are a new hit with Carson.
Oftentimes they are his preferred mode of entertainment on car rides or on the sidelines of his brother’s games. That’s a great thing considering today’s technology cravings among most kids.
What’s funny to me is for the longest time I marveled over how fast he found the words. He would do four or five searches during one of his brother’s 45-minute soccer games.
Because I was into watching Beckett, I didn’t realize what he learned recently. One of his books has the word searches in the front with the answers in the back.
During a long car ride recently, I watched as he selected a puzzle, worked on it for a few minutes and then sought out the answers. He then systematically went through finding every word with the answer key and then crossing off the words from the listing.
When I said that’s cheating and wondered what’s the fun in that, he shushed me and carried on.