Mielke Family Fun: All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth

In November we girls went to the dentist for our regular cleaning. Our dentist, Dr. Alexander, suggested that we take Elyse to see our ortho because he wasn't happy with how some of her permanent teeth were coming in - or not coming in. Carolyn was due for yet another 6 month re-check with the ortho (we're still waiting for her to lose enough teeth so she can get into braces) and Elyse was VERY excited to finally get to see the ortho. She's kind of excited about the possibility of having braces eventually. I assure both my girls that braces are no picnic - but in the long run they are well worth it. It am forever grateful for my parents putting $$ into my mouth so I have straight teeth. SO! In mid- December we went to see our ortho who actually has a 6:45 AM appointment - and that's the one my girls got. Ortho agreed with dentist: Elyse should have two teeth pulled. Long story short, I wanted to get these teeth pulled before the end of the year so when I called the dentist that afternoon, I was a little stunned when she said, "We can get her in today at 4:00." I did some frantic shuffling around, hoped things got between the two doctors and we were good to go! I picked up Elyse and filled her in on the plan. I said, "Hey, Elyse. We get to go to Dr. Alexander today." She said, with a very bright excited face, "OH!" then her face fell a little and she said, "Oh!" then the realization of why we were seeing Dr. Alexander settled in and she said, "oh." -- all within 3 seconds. Away we went.

We got to Dr. Alexander and I was a little bummed they wouldn't let me take pictures of the procedure. I got to watch, and unlike my mother would have been, I was very quiet and observant.

Getting numbed up. You can see her lip is a little swollen.

Before.
Funny thing: She's holding her lip up to show her teeth, but
she's actually having the next teeth pulled -
the canines that you can't see.