Opinion: Shark teeth genes

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Only two of our children inherited my ginger genes, but unfortunately, all four have what we like to call “British teeth.” Thankfully, modern orthodontics can easily fix cramped mouths and overlapping shark-row chompers, though it usually entails more than just braces for us Wilsons. Namely, the extraction of four or more teeth. Our oldest daughter actually had to have 11 out before donning the metal. Eleven! (That’s one louder, btw.)

This morning, our youngest was up to bat, needing several uppers and lowers pulled, and as we did with her siblings, we supported her decision to receive mild sedation. Twelve-year old competitive dancers and a dozen Novocain injections do not a smooth procedure make, and we had fun predicting how she would react to the drugs. Our other kids have run the gamut from uncontrollable giggling at literally nothing to prolonged weeping over the perceived loss of a chin. Since Maddie tends to have a flair for the dramatic anyway, I anticipated she would lean towards the emotional.

That proved to be the understatement of the year. From the moment I helped her out of the wheelchair into the car, all the way through the Steak-n-Shake drive-through for the prescribed milkshake, the entire length of my run-in to CVS for painkillers, to when we pulled into the driveway 45 minutes later, this child was sobbing.

First it was because her phone was out of memory and the planned video recording of her post-medication antics had to be scrapped. (No worries, I used mine. It’s priceless!) Next, she was upset because she couldn’t remember falling asleep, and then she became distraught because she was drooling her strawberry/chocolate side-by-side all over her shirt. Finally, she mourned the fact that she could not feel her mouth.

As her mother, I was both enormously entertained and legitimately concerned, but eventually I was just plain exhausted. I ended up taking a nap alongside my daughter after we’d both recovered from the morning’s shenanigans. Luckily, this is it for a while. With the snaggleteeth on the road to Straightdom, handling the redheads should be easy.

Peace out.

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