It was a milestone day—though, not necessarily the good kind, ha.
Poor Chica officially launched her Braces Era with the same stalwart grace she’s exhibited at every pre-teen turn, thus far:
Honestly, along the past week or so, as I’ve accompanied her along pediatrician checkups and ortho consults, shopping trips and middle school readiness supply runs, I’ve probably been just as emotional (inwardly!) as she is.
I’m so grateful to have a lovely and open dialogue with her—and all my kiddos—so we chat freely about her anxiety and mine, relating to allllll these new milestones markers that we seem to be facing, one after another after another.
There’s not much to be done about it all but give her (and myself!) some grace and kindness and levity, when possible. And it’s definitely nice to feel like her emotions seem to be sort of right on par with where they should be for her age and stage.
But that doesn’t make it any easier, right??
Specifically on the orthodontics front, my poor eldest has already had her fair share of yuck. Starting way back when she was this adorable little thing:
She dealt with an expander for more than a year, and the awful cranking associated with creating more space.
Then not too long after, she dealt with surgery to extract a molar that fused to the bone:
And immediately after that, she endured yet another permanent spacer/retainer situation to attempt to lure a different molar down and into proper position. An endeavor that failed, btw.
Anywho.
By now, she’s old hat at all this—though sometimes a little blue about why she seems to be the unlucky ortho one in the household.
(And Mama and Daddy are a little blue that we’ve already blown through 90% of the lifetime insurance-coverage that goes toward orthodontics for Chica, so…yeah. That braces paperwork was a bit of a sucker punch.)
Alas. It is what it is, and this is a classic growing up mile marker. And it’s wild to know that, two years from now, when those braces are taken off, Chica will be an official TEEN and headed into her final year of middle school. And then I’ll bawl my eyes out for a whole new hosts of reasons, ha.
My babies and I are cocooning together tomorrow and NOT LEAVING the house—unless they force me to do their bidding and pick up requested food, ha. And we could not be more excited about it!
So…more mañana.
Until then: Happy Monday, peeps!
Over and out.
No comments:
Post a Comment