First Visit to the Dentist

We've been searching for a dentist for Alex for a while.  (Honestly, I think I've subconsciously been putting it off because let's face it - once you've had a bad dentist experience, you remember it forever...and it makes it pretty hard to get excited about the dentist.)  First, we are very limited by our insurance as to who we can see that's on our plan, which is a bummer because a friend at our church has a husband who is a dentist and he comes highly recommended.  Second, our dentist office will not see children until they are four years old - they recommend seeing a pediatric dentist.  Third, the pediatrician recommended Alex see a dentist when he turned three - but she recommends a pediatric dentist at that age too.  Fourth, our insurance considers a pediatric dentist a specialist, which costs a whole lot more (underscore WHOLE LOT) than a plain old dentist.  These are all of my excuses for taking so long to get him in for his first visit.

Enter Groovy Dental.  They are one of the few on our insurance plan, so I made Alex his appointment and tried very hard to forget the cost (here you can visit their website - http://www.groovymolar.com).  And it's not like their prices are unreasonable...they are the same as every other pediatric dentist in the area - dental insurance is just ridiculous (or insert a number of other adjectives here).  For months we've been talking about the dentist and what he does and why it's important to go, but Alex still wasn't sure this would be a good thing.  We're into rhyming so we even made up a little saying about Dr. Brad - Dr. Brad is Rad (hey, that rhymes mommy! and then the enthusiasm vanished).

This morning he woke up and decided maybe could wait to go to the dentist, "um...until later".  Protesting the entire way, we headed to the office.  I dragged grandma along with me as back up in case of complete meltdown (okay, in reality she was there to keep me calm).  Walking down the hall in the office building he kept saying he didn't want to go...and then we opened the door to the office and he saw the toys and his attention was instantly diverted.  Then came the moment when they asked Alex to go to the back for pictures of his teeth.  Alex looked up and said he didn't think he was ready yet, but very sweetly and with (in my opinion at that time of the morning) way too much enthusiasm, his hygienist started to slowly persuade him that he was ready (no small feat) and finally off he walked, without me or grandma.  While holding our breath and waiting for the screaming to start, we heard a strange sound coming from the back - giggling.  A LOT of giggling...impossible, but it was Alex and when she brought him back out to get us, they were the best of friends.  He followed her right into the cleaning room and hopped up on the table like he gets his teeth cleaned at the dentist every day.  And the giggling continued.

smiling for Daddy to show him the dentist office isn't scary after all

super-groovy glasses

opening wide like a hippo for his amazingly patient (and really fun) hygienist 

we all took a turn wearing the "groovy" glasses

The very rad (and really amazing with kids) Dr. Brad

Needless to say, the meltdown never occurred, and Groovy Dental was worth any cost to see Alex have such a great time at the dentist office.  He did cry, but it was as we were walking out the door and he kept saying, "I'm really not ready to go yet. I'm not mommy".