Trip to the Dentist--First Day of School

As we sat down to lunch today, MinMin took one bite, and a tooth fell out. It was a rather large looking tooth, pretty bad looking, and I thought that she has broken a permanent tooth. I called the dentist, and made an appointment for the afternoon--which is a rare thing to be able to do.

The dentist is 45 minutes away, so we set off. After a typically long wait it was our turn. I had explained to MinMin on babelfish where we were going and what was going to happen, but she just wasn't prepared. I explained to the dentist more or less MinMin's dental history---which is pretty much nothing---and her first impression when she looked into MinMin's mouth was, "Que barbaro,", or loosly translated, "Yikes!" She decided to clean the teeth first to be better able to see what needs to be done. Poor MinMin just didn't like having this lady sticking things in her mouth. I had to hold her hands and pat her leg to keep her from jumping up off of the seat. After a cleaning, the dentist was a bit happier with what she saw, said that so much plaque was rare at this age, and that it wasn't as bad as first thought. There are a couple of major cavities, but in baby teeth, and some smaller ones in permanent teeth. As we already knew, she needs braces soon, as her upper teeth are way out of line and need to move.

As we were leaving and making another appointment the secretary said something about "my son", so I let her know that MinMin is a girl. Her reply was, "Oh, she doesn't have any earrings." Girls here have their ears pierced when they are a day for two old, so to see a girl her age with no earrings is quite rare. So, it wasn't the short haircut this time (which is definately beginning to look a little bit longer) but the lack of earrings.

Poor girl was quite brave, and smiled when it was all over. She was taught the proper way to brush, which I retold her on babelfish when we got home. I also explained to her that we are going back in three weeks, and showed her pictures of braces on the internet and told her she would need those in a couple of months. So, we are thankful to have the dental stuff started, and will be getting a complete set of x-rays done in the next couple of weeks to see where to start.

I need to get our Shriner's application off in the mail this week. There is a Shriner's hospital in Mexico City, so I am hoping that they will see her there, check out her leg, and just reassure us that all is well, or tell us if something needs to be done for her.

We started school this morning. MinMin enjoyed the English video, and surprises me now and then with English words that she uses. Obviously she did learn some in the Enlgish class she took back at the orphanage. She knows the ABC's pretty well, just missing a couple of letters in the middle. She thought it was pretty funny to be learning the sounds of the letters with Taylor (LiAnne is really not very interested yet.) She did some more math work for me, and gave me more of an idea of what we need to work on.

One of these days soon I'll find an extra few minutes to try to figure out why I couldn't get the pictures to download onto my computer and put some more up.