My strong-willed child meets the dentist

My 9 year old daughter has been complaining that there was food getting stuck up in one of her teeth.  I didn't think too much of it, but then the other day her tongue was all scratched up from it, so I figured that it was probably chipped and made a dentist appointment right away.  The dentist took one look at the tooth- a baby tooth (thank goodness!), and said that it should probably come out.  He said it was not only chipped, but also had a cavity.  Her dentist is so awesome.  He calls her angel, joked with her about chewing on rocks and promised it wouldn't hurt and that he would give her happy gas to make her feel happy about it.  She turned to look at me with tears in her eyes and said, "I refuse".  I just looked at her like, "what?!"  Then she said it again, "I absolutely refuse", and she stared at me with my very own "don't mess with me, I am the boss" look that I give to my students!  Someday, my daughter will be a force to be reckoned with, but for today, she got the tooth pulled.  Hope the tooth fairy brings her something good- she deserves it!

dentists and lasers

I have a huge toothache and had to make an emergency trip to the dentist today. As I was driving there, I caught myself thinking that I hope that the dentist can fix my tooth without actually having to touch it. I mean, we are in the year 2010, why hasn't someone invented a laser that they can just point at your tooth and take care of business? Why are people still being drilled with those horrible drills? Anyway, when I got there and was seated in the chair, the hygienist said, "oh you are a gagger". Well, isn't that just a great thing to have in my file?! Of course I am going to gag when you stick all those instruments into my mouth. Which is another reason why someone should really look into that laser thing! Then, I had an idea that if I was really good and didn't gag while she was taking the x-rays, maybe she would take it off of my file. Too bad it didn't work.