Dentist Day

To psych us up for our first trip to the dentist [and because we'd been stuck inside for 4 days due to weather], we stopped by the aquarium for an hour first to get some energy out. We had the whole place to ourselves! Seriously, both exhibits we visited had a total of 2 other people while we were in them. I only with they'd opened the dolphin exhibit so we could've seen them without insane crowds! As it was, we still got to see neat stuff. They just got two more beluga whales - juveniles that were very rowdy! The sea otters were in top form, and it was fun to crawl through the penguin tunnel with no line. The whale sharks seemed to sense that no one was there, as they were swimming much lower and closer to the glass than we usually see them when we visit. Even the yucky octopus was crawling (slithering?) around because they were feeding him, instead of hiding in the rocks like usual.

After the aquarium, we had to go meet our fate at the dentist. It went relatively well. They were all quite nice, and besides having Joseph scream bloody murder because he was in a stranger's lap getting painful utensils shoved in his mouth by said stranger, it was a relatively pleasant experience. She didn't really have an explanation for the discoloration on his teeth besides the standard "maybe it was the iron supplement", but she did confirm that it's not a cavity situation. So that's good news. She tried to go at them with a couple of instruments to get the stain off, but it wasn't working and poor Joseph was in such a state that I pulled the plug. If it's cosmetic we can fix it when he's at a more reasonable age.

We got a list of "good" snack foods (these docs and their nutrition guidelines, hehe) to prevent decay, our very first reminder to floss his teeth (yeah right) and our first mention of crowding - already setting us up for braces. Given T.J.'s dental history, we'd be lucky to get off with just a bottom row of braces. Beats the heck out of head gear!

At the end they gave him a "prize" which was a small fish toy, coincidentally! Joseph just started using the word fish (ish) in the last few weeks, and obviously said it about a million times at the aquarium, so getting a fish at the dentist was pretty great. Mama got us a prize, too. A milkshake from Chick-Fil-A.

Hey, the dentist said ice cream is good - apparently it just "slides off of the teeth". Sweet!