Last week The Musician had an orthodontist appointment. He has many, many orthodontist appointments, and he is always a rockstar before, during and after them. I don’t know if there is a kid alive who is more into his braces and what they’re going to do for him than he is. He has some serious jaw and alignment problems, so this whole process is going to take the better part of about 6 years….we’re just into year 2, I think. So yeah, it’s a long haul.
Anyway this latest appointment was a doozy – they made some adjustments, put spacers between his molars, so now he can’t actually close his mouth all the way, and did a bunch of other stuff to him. And, as I said before, rockstar. He’s awesome. Later though, his mouth and head started to hurt, and he couldn’t really eat anything that wasn’t the consistency of porridge. Still he soldiered on. The next morning, he just looked so sad. He was tired, and his mouth hurt. Tried to eat a soft egg and bread – no toast, too crunchy – and he sort of was able to get that down. We gave him some Tylenol and he went to school with something just as soft in his lunch. Poor kid.
Later that day I was talking to a friend who has a little guy who is almost 2. She said he was getting his molars, so that was throwing off his routine with sleep and eating and all that. And I started thinking about my boy – almost 13, but with similar symptoms, just a very different cause.
And it makes sense that when I saw him come downstairs looking so sad and tired I just wanted to scoop him up and get his blanky and cuddle him on the couch. Which is what I would have done when he was 2 and teething and feeling so yucky. And I can still do that, of course. He does like a good cuddle even now. But there’s just less time for that, especially in the mornings when there are lunches to make, homework to finish, showers to be had, and all those school and work day morning things.
By the end of the day he was feeling much better – the Tylenol worked, he had started to get used to the spacers and the feeling of all the adjustments. Dinner was no problem, he went to karate and hung out with this friends.
And I had missed my chance to cuddle a rockstar. It’s a good lesson to have learned, though. Time. There never seems to be enough, but it’s important to use the time you’ve got wisely. Because you just never know.
The Urban Info Girl 