for their own good....right?

The kids have a dentist appointment on Monday morning. All of them. I haven't decided if I'm totally brilliant or totally crazy to take them all at once, but it's the way we do it. It's always a little hectic, but then it's over and we don't have to go back for 6 months. Unless there's a problem.
There was a problem last time. Caliana had a cavity. She'd been to the dentist twice. 2 checkups and cleanings, and she loved the dentist. She asked to go back all the time. And now she was getting her wish. But I knew with all of my hard earned grown up knowledge that this time would be different. That she would no longer ask to go to the dentist. This time would be bad. I just didn't realize how bad.



Getting her there and in the chair was no problem. She had done this, she liked it. Dentist, yay! They put the nitrous mask on her, which looked like an elephant mask, with it's long hose carrying drugs to my 3 yr old's system (don't think I didn't agonize over it). It looked uncomfortable, and it must have been because she kept trying to take it off, but she was also trying really hard to be good and do what they told her.

I could tell she was scared when they put the mouth clamp in, and started to protest, and that's when the dentist made the decision to just go for it and gave her that evil shot in the gums, and my baby screamed.

I was given a seat by her legs, where I tried to hold her hand and calm her and also try to hold her still so the dentists could hurry the hell up already.

They held her in somewhat of a headlock, screaming, crying, snot running... and in holding her down, they were jamming the mouth clamp into her lip, because blood started dribbling down with her drool.

This all happened in a matter of minutes and I was helpless, torn between trying to help the dentist finish and wanting to punch her in her goddamn face.

And then my baby gagged, and peed her pants, and I told them to let her up. She was done. We sat there, my baby and I, both of us traumatized and crying. It was the worst dental experience of my life, and it wasn't even mine.

We go again on Monday, six months later, and Cali is protesting. She hasn't forgotten. We try to convince her that it's just for a cleaning...."they're just going to brush your teeth" we say, and she yells "I don't want the SCISSORS" and stomps away. And really I can't blame her. I don't want to go back either.