Guess Where I Was This Morning?

At the orthodontists! Remember six months ago when I had to bring Toad to the orthodontist for the first time? At that point the orthodontist put us on the 'wait-and-see' plan - which I have alternately titled the 'let's-see-how-much-we-can-get-out-of-your-insurance-before-we-start-anything' plan.

Surprise! It's been six months! So this morning we headed back to the orthodontist in order to see if we're still on the 'wait-and-see' plan or if we've moved onto the 'we-know-your-insurance-is-going-to-pay-so-we're-actually-going-to-think-of-something-that-we-can-do-to-torture-your-child' plan.

Guess what? A decision has been made....sort of. The orthodontist wants to have two of Toad's bottom baby teeth pulled to make room for more teeth to grow in. Apparently right now he's trying to fit four teeth into a space that would only fit three.

He's always looking for shortcuts that kid - just like his mother.

Then he said that Toad would come back in four more months at which point we'd probably make the decision to pull two of his top teeth. Why can't we pull them all at once? I have no idea.

"And how soon will it be when the teeth are pulled?" I asked.
"In four months, like I said." he replied.

Now, I'm not an orthodontist, or a hygentist, or anythign that ends in -ist, but I'm also not an idiot. I knew he was talking about two separate procedures but the conversation wasn't making sense!

"No, when will you be pulling his two bottom teeth?" I tried again.
"I will be sending a letter to Dr. L, recommending that the two bottom teeth get pulled." he said.
"So you're not going to be doing it? Dr. L will be doing it?" But, wasn't that the whole point of going to the orthodontist and not his regular dentist, Dr. L?
"I will be sending the letter out today, so you can call him on Friday or Monday to schedule the appointment." he said, clearly getting exasperated with me.

Mmmm...kay. I absolutely love Dr. L (as much as you can love a dentist), and I have NO PROBLEM with him extracting two of Toad's baby teeth (possibly four), but why were we making the appointment and spending the money to go see the orthodontist if he was only going to ship us back to the dentist? ARGH!

Then he said that after those four teeth were pulled (how much you wanna bet Dr. L will be respnosible for pulling the other two teeth as well?), we would wait for "four years or so" and then would work on getting the healthy teeth straight.

Huh?

So we'll let the grow in crooked and then we'll work on fixing them. Can't we just help them grow in straight, or straighter, in the first place?