Wednesday, January 25, 2006
It turns out that Vanessa is in need of orthodontic work. I knew this was coming -- both her Mother and I had to have extensive orthodontic work done on our teeth when we were younger -- but what surprises me is that they now take much younger children into treatment. Vanessa turns 8 next Monday, and I was a young teen when I started my many years of orthodontistry (throughout the whole of my high school years, ugh!).
Vanessa thinks that this is all cool, and she is enthused that she would be the youngest kid she knows about at her school with braces. Am pretty sure the coolness aspect will evaporate pretty quickly after her first few uncomfortable nights wearing a retainer, or of having to use a palette expander (I managed to avoid that piece of dontic torture myself; it is a device design to force out the bones of the lower jaw). Then there's the cost as well, but this falls under the category of "things that need to be done" (and like I said earlier, it comes as little surprise). And if doing all this now knocks years of the time needed to do this if we waited until she was a teenager, I can testify that it is well worth doing.
It still seems cruel to impose this sort of thing on someone still so young. It was certainly very little fun for me, but it is easy to get used to just about anything -- I just hope Vanessa has developed enough stoicism in her character by this point to put up with the initial pain for a benefit that will only pay off when she is older.
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