A Tale of Two Teeth

Jaclyn has sucked her thumb since birth.  Well, if you want to get technical, she even sucked her thumb en utero.  We caught her sucking her thumb during an ultrasound.  All that thumb-thucking in her first 4 years made her front teeth look like this:

and like this:

Needless to say, we figured braces were going to be in this girly's future!  Well back in July, Joanna and Jaclyn were running wild at great-grandma Ramsey's house and had a pretty nasty head-on collision.  Joanna's head met Jaclyn's front teeth.  Not only did Jaclyn have a bloody, puffy top lip for a few days, but the top front teeth were knocked loose.  Within a week we noticed that the teeth were also starting to turn greyish. 

So I took her in to see the dentist who took an x-ray. Sure enough, those teeth were gonners.  The roots were dead.  The dentist said we could wait 4-6 mon. and let them fall out on their own and risk infection, or we could extract them.  So we opted to have them extracted.

This was taken in the dentist's chair just prior to all hell breaking loose.  (note the greyish teeth)

Now you may remember that Jaclyn's nickname is banshee.  And for good reason.  This girl is a screamer!!  You can imagine the fun we had as she had her gums get pricked with a needle, as they covered her nose with the nitrous mask, and then yanked her teeth out with a metal instrument!  There was much weeping, wailing, and knashing of teeth. 

When it came time to actually pull the teeth out, it took me, two dental hygenists, and the dentist to hold her down long enough to finish the procedure. 

Oh, that poor, poor child. 

Here's what she looks like these days:

Isn't she cute without those front teeth?  What's really endearing is the way she's forced to pronounce many 'th' and 's' words that she used to be able to say perfectly.  My speech pathologist mom could immediately hear the difference in pronunciations while talking with Jaclyn on the phone.  Of course, she's got an ear for that sort of thing!  Jaclyn will be thspeaking like thisth for a long time becauseth the dentistht thsaid that judging by the xth-raysth, she'sth not going to get her new teeth for at leathst two more yearsth!!