a milestone perhaps

we took the kids to the dentist this morning. colbys been a few times already, but it was mollys first experience. allen and colby went back together, then molly and i went to another room. she cried at first; i guess all the 'stuff' is intimidating to a kid seeing it for the first time. she settled down quickly and cooperated well with the hygenist though.

when the dentist came in to look her over, he said the roof of her mouth is malforming due to her still using her pacifier. we've known for quite awhile that the paci needs to go, and we've even attempted to take it from her a couple of times, but its a;ways very short lived. shes been limited to bedtime only for several months, but apparently its still doing a number on her mouth and teeth. he said if we can get them away from her now, that her mouth will be able to correct itsself without having to have any kind of corrective stuff done later down the road.

hearing all this we said (with the dentist still sitting there), "molly, did you hear that? we have to get rid of your paci. the dr. says its going to mess up your pretty teeth." molly said, "ok." like it was no big deal.

when we got in the car we addressed it again.

allen: "molly do you want to have pretty teeth?"

molly: "yes."

allen: "then we need to get rid of paci."
molly: "ok. we have to get rid of paci so i can have pretty teeth."

me: "your paci is making your teeth sick. maybe we should go give your pacis to the babies at the hospital who dont have pacis."

molly: "yeah, lets go give my pacis to the babies."

i remember hearing somewhere that a mom took her kid and the pacifiers and they went to the hospital and handed the pacifiers to a nurse to 'give to the newborn babies." then the nurse of course just went and threw them away. but the good thing about that scenario is the pacifiers are then out of the house and you're not the bad guy. the pacis were given to someone who needs them, not taken away randomly.

so we went home, collected her pacifiers, and went to one of the hospitals here in town. a friend of ours is the director of the clinic, so she met us and took us to the pediatric wing where she had a couple of the nurses (who she had explained the situation to) come out to meet molly. molly told them very matter-of-factly what she was doing and offered the bag to the nurse and gave her a hug. it was one of the sweetest things i've seen in a long time. molly genuinely thought she was helping the babies and she made sure to tell the nurse that "each baby gets one pacifier."

then they gave her (and colby too) a sticker and a coloring book and a little thing of bubbles to take home.

we topped of the day with a fun lunch and ice cream.

now, its only 2:30, so we'll see if i still think it was a great idea when bedtime comes tonight.

however, theres no turning back. even if she cries and throws a fit at bedtime, we have no pacifier to give her, and hopefully the pictures from today will remind her what she did. and we'll of course blame the dentist....