Sanity Check: Boy Gets Braces

Yesterday was quite a momentous occasion for one of the men in my life. My littlest man, at 9 years of age, had braces put on his upper row of teeth. His two front teeth took FOREVER to finally come in, and when they finally did, they were as crooked as can be, which caused my little man major embarrassment. His normal "ear to ear" grin for photos disappeared. If you know my little man, you know that's just wrong. Something had to be done.

Our family, which the exception of my husband, isn't accustomed to receiving dental care on base, for normally the military member is the only one eligible for this service. The rest of us have had to seek dental care in the civilian sector, which is fine, but certainly not as convenient. That has changed since moving to Spain, for obvious reasons of course. We have a fabulous dental clinic here at Rota, and there just happens to be an orthodontist on staff, which is a bonus for us. We won't be paying massive amounts of money for these braces. LIFE IS GOOD!

Because he knew I'd had braces as a kid, my son had asked me a few weeks ago if getting braces would hurt and how long he'd have to wear them. I didn't want to scare the kid, but I also didn't want to lie, therefore I was straight with him. I told him getting braces does indeed hurt, but the discomfort doesn't last long, only 2-3 days. I also told him that adjustments will make him sore too, but again, not for long. Of course we don't know how long he'll have to wear them because everyone is different, but I told him it would be quite a long time, perhaps a year or two, so that he'd understand it was a long-term deal, not a quick fix. He took it all in, nodding as I answered his questions. He still wanted braces. We went through the preliminary ortho appointment, and the doc took one look at his teeth and immediately gave us the thumbs up for braces.

Yesterday I picked my little man up from school a bit early for the ortho appointment. We stopped by the house so he could quickly brush and floss his teeth. We weren't 100% sure he'd get his braces because we'd heard different things from different people. We thought he might get spacers or just have impressions made. We didn't know what to expect. First he had to do this...

They took "before" photos...

Here my little man reads while he waits for whatever comes next...

Then he ended up having impressions made and he wasn't thrilled with those. In fact, that was probably the worst part of the whole ordeal, which I completely understand, having had them myself and remembering how it made me feel at the time. Here he is, being a real trooper...

The lower teeth impressions weren't as bad as the upper. The upper make your gag reflex kick in big time. I could tell my son was struggling a bit from the "knitted eyebrows," but he did such a great job!

Here the ortho and tech are adhering the braces to little man's teeth.

Here's a close-up...

Yep, he chose yellow and black... the colors of his favorite pro football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers!

They're done! The whole procedure took less than an hour. My son checks out his new look...