The Pickle Jar: Jenna Jade's 1st Dentist Appointment

Jenna did AMAZING!!! I was so very proud! And so very shocked at the same time!! I was completely prepared for her to pitch a fit....and the night before, and the day leading up to it, Jenna whined and cried about how scared she was. Her daddy called to encorage her and she sounded so pitiful as she said "Daddy, I just really don't want to go to the dentist."

Well, first the dentist did my cleaning and Jenna got to watch and they showed her all the need tools they use to clean teeth. :) Jenna thought that was really neat. When it was finally her turn, she was shy at first but we were able to get her to lay down and soon as she sat in that chair- she was a total different child! The fears ran away and they even had her giggling when they told her how much better behaved she was than mommy was at her first visit. They did a full cleaning and everything and Jenna was so calm and followed all their instructions. I was so impressed by my big girl! We now have homework, however... We must limit candy, stop the thumb sucking, and have 4 cavities filled.

The first two we've worked out a deal with Jenna - she will earn stars on her calendar for things like not having candy all day, not wetting the bed at night, and going to bed when we ask her to....stars will be taken away if she is caught sucking her thumb, or if she wets the bed, etc. If we make it a whole month with a star on each day, we're going to let her pick out a toy at the toy store. She is so excited and it's working FAR better than I imagined... we actually offered her candy earlier for helping with a chore and she said "no mommy, that's bad for my teeth!" ha ha! She also caught herself sucking her thumb and I watched her quickly pull it out, look up and say "mommy, my thumb makes my teeth messy" ha ha. :)

The last bit of homework takes time. 4 cavities... Well, first, we have to take her to see Dr. Malpass, her pediatric cardiologist. She has a hole in her heart that was letting blood get where it shouldn't and he wants to see if it has closed on its own, or if she does still have it, see if she needs antibiotics before any dental procedure. That's on Thursday, February 12th (I will definitely post here to let you all know what Dr. Malpass says about Jenna's heart). Then on February 16th & again on March 16th- she will have cavities filled. They really do a great job with kids- they worked on me and I turned out ok LOL. :)

I'm so proud of Jenna for being so brave in all of this, she really behaves remarkably well for the dentist and her cardiologist! :)

That's my girl!

In this pic- Nurse Anne does the cleaning...