Smiles

Adrienne and Samantha are both out of braces now. Both have beautiful smiles that light up their faces and my life. Sammie's big day was last Wednesday when all of the sudden she was amazingly transformed from cute girl to gorgeous girl when those brackets came off.

The refreshing thing is about Sammie is that her appearance was the last thing she cared about. I don't think she hardly looked in the mirror. Instead she was focused on NOT going to school that day and devouring the huge bag of "no-no treats" (sticky candy, etc) that the orthodontist had given her as a a congratulations for getting her braces off. Then she came to the elementary school with me where she played kick ball with the sixth graders and swung on the swings. She did make me take her to Hogi Yogi after recess, but she was mostly happy as a clam hanging out at home.

So we have some light up my life (think Debby Boone--I sang that song until there were tears streaming down my face in the 70s) smiles going on around here. I'm sure my other two kids will have their own turn to get straight teeth in a few years or so. Having braces seems so much of the norm right now for kids. I know it is because all my friends who didn't get them or did get them and they didn't work are NOW getting them in their 30s and 40s. I think my aunt in her early 50s is a metal mouth tinsel teeth.

I doubt if anyone calls anyone metal mouth or tinsel teeth or brace face (thanks Mark) anymore since a good majority of kids and some adults too, have braces on. If some kid was so bold as to shout out "Hey tinsel teeth" in the hallway at the junior high, perhaps 40 kids might turn and glare at the bare-toothed kid and he'd feel like a total outcast.

My babish friend Alison--check out the link to her blog--just got hers off. Wow! My equally babish sister-in-law Cathy got hers off a while ago--Yowza! It's amazing that these two women could get any more beautiful, but they did!

All I can say is getting braces on and off these days is sweet compared to what I "went through" in the early 80s. Here are the top ten reasons why it's totally better today:

1. If you brush well, you get to put your name in a drawing to win ipods and mall gift certificates or a flat screen TV (well maybe not that last one).
2. Your orthodontist wears gloves so you can't feel his freezing cold hands and smell their metally smell from working on the previous kid.
3. You can watch TV or any DVD of your choice while you're getting worked on. I would have killed for Brady Bunch or Gilligan's Island or anything while I was sitting there with Dr. Ammott.
4. Orthodontists stand behind you instead of next to you now so you don't have to hear their growling stomachs at a lunchtime appointment.
5. Your Mom has to check you out of school to go to the ortho because there's not way you can walk a few blocks by yourself in this day and age.
6. You get to choose which color you want laced through your brackets and change them every month! For example, you can be green in March for St. Paddy's Day and orange for Halloween, pink for Valentine's Day. All I had was silver. And those bands went all the way around my teeth. Today they're called brackets and they're only adhered to the front somehow.
7. They don't pull teeth anymore, they make space for them. Having four teeth pulled was awful!
8. Who's ever heard of a head gear anymore--the implement that said "extreme loser" if you dared wear it to school.
9. If you want to pay more, your braces can be invisible.
10. Orthodontists are in it for the business. You're going to go to the one who tells you you're absolutely beautiful, and with that smile we're going to create, you can stop traffic. You won't choose your orthodontist just because your next door neighbor is his assistant/secretary!

Kids are spoiled rotten these days!