Humble Pie

So, I had two cavities. I know. Me! The girl who likes to win at the dentist. The person who GOES to the dentist specifically for the self esteem boost when the dentist calls in all the staff to ogle at my perfect, awesome teeth. I had two cavities.

Of course, I blame Miles entirely. For one thing, I have consumed significantly more dark chocolate since he has been born than during the entire rest of my life. For another, he is so time consuming that I often don't remember to floss my teeth and only get in a cursory brush once a day. Sometimes I forget even that. Someday, when my teeth fall out, I am going to send him a bill for dentures and say he started me on a terrible downward spiral into poor dental health.

I haven't had a filling since I was 15 years old, and even then I just had two little surfacey fillings from where my braces latched onto my molars. I didn't even know what was involved in getting a filling, so of course I had Dr. Dan talk me through the process. I was immediately sorry I had done so!

The whole practice of dentistry seems so medieval. So torturous! Drills in the mouth. Metal rings around the teeth. The grinding and the smoke and the smells! The metallic taste! My god. The worst is the Novocaine shot I buckled down and finally got since I am such a big baby. I literally whimpered while the needle was going into my cheek. Now my whole lip feels like a puffy goiter jutting out of my face.

I keep trying to sip my disgusting nursing tea and it dribbles right out the corner of my mouth. Much like Miles. I think the two of us should wear matching bibs for the rest of the day as we sit and stare at each other, trying together to figure out how to control the rubbery sausages holding in our spit.

Additionally, I no longer have any superiority over Corey in the dental department. Nobody tells you when you deliver a baby that you should budget for fillings because you'll be too consumed to care for your teeth properly. Nobody tells you that you are going to have to eat crow after months and years of teasing your husband for his decay-prone teeth. So let it be known that I, Katy, have publicly apologized to Corey for making fun of his cavities and am publicly recognizing the hypocrisy involved in such taunting now that I have had two, TWO, teeth filled in one day.

I realize now there is nothing funny about that chair in the back corner office and that it actually hurts quite a bit to have this problem remedied. I feel compelled to massage his back or something in penance. You know, with all my free time. As soon as I'm done flossing, I will think about offering to do something nice for him. But I really do feel badly for making fun! And I will never do it again.