At the beginning of December my Monkeys had their first dental visit. Through recommendations I was pointed to a pediatric dentist, and she was absolutely as fabulous as people had said. Monkey1 was barely in the exam chair when the hygienist was offering her a choice of pink or purple sunglasses to wear... to shade her eyes from the overhead light that swoops down into one's mouth. The dentist herself had the perfectly modulated voice of a preschool teacher, chatting, humming, and singing away as she inspected the teeth. Monkey1 was so disarmed that she even let her teeth be polished! Monkey2 was more uneasy, so no polishing her for teeth. However, both left with goody bags of toothbrushes, floss, timers for teeth-brushing, and I think there were stickers because there seem more stickers on the car windows. Also, each received a golden quarter that worked in the toy machine in the hallway, delivering an impossibly small plastic animal in the ubiquitous bubble of candy machine dispensers.
As I expected, the dentist told me that we'd be making friends with an orthodontist in a few years because of Monkey1's finger sucking habit. She was down to night-time only, to fall asleep or get back to sleep. The dentist gave Monkey1 some homework: hold her hands in her lap instead.
Well, Monkey1 and I tried a few other tactics, finally landing on "skin tape" as I referred to the white medical tape in my box of medicines. I taped it over her fingers, creating a reminder to her mouth that the fingers did not belong there. This morning marked two weeks of success: no finger sucking at night (evidenced by her not-smelly morning fingers). As promised, I let her choose a fingernail polish color at the store, and then she wanted all of us to have matching painted fingers and toes.
I must say, she has an eye for color. Fuchsia Bling Bling lives up to its name.
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