Braces!

It's been about a year in the making, but on Tuesday, December 1st, Froggie started the process of getting braces. I say "started" because, of course, nothing is simple in our house.

Because of the seriousnes of his jaw problems, it turns out that there is a very extensive plan for fixing said problems. Tuesday was just the beginning.

Froggie now has braces on his upper teeth only. This is to get things aligned and straightened enough to have oral surgery to pull down an upper tooth that's killing it's next door neighbor. I found out Tuesday that when he has the surgery, they will put him completely under anesthesia. This does not make me happy. I am trying not to dwell on that aspect of the process.

Once he has the oral surgery, they will put a little pulley system on that particular tooth and hook it up to the braces and pull that tooth out. In addition to the braces not being comfortable, that little dealio will probably be painful for him. At some point after oral surgery, they will add the bottom braces.

Supposedly he will have the full braces on for 2-3 years, at which time they will remove the braces and figure out which jaw should be broken to fix THAT problem. At this point the orthodontist is 98% sure he will have to have the jaw surgery, which will require breaking his jaw and wiring it shut. After that fun, he will get to be in braces yet again, probably another 1-2 years.

Seriously.

To top things off, his underbite is so severe that they had to put a bumper brace on the back of his bottom front teeth. It's halfway up and would annoy me like nobody's business. It's there to keep him from closing his mouth all the way, because if he did, he'd knock the braces off the upper teeth. This means that even when his mouth is closed, he has about an inch of space between his upper and lower back teeth. It feels like he can't chew his food.

Really.

He did pretty well getting the braces on - which took over an hour - although he did try to talk the entire time. He has asked about a dozen times a day since then when he's getting these stinking braces off. Could be a long adventure.

I rewarded him with a Lego for his troubles. He seemed pretty happy about that at least.