Thursday, May 8, 2014

Sweet sixteen

Younger Daughter achieved a milestone yesterday -- it was her 16th birthday!

Poor kid -- we really didn't do much to celebrate. The reason is, we did some mighty special things in the time leading up to her 16th.

The biggest thing in her universe happened on Monday when she got her braces off. Her teeth have been fenced in for 18 months and she was desperately hoping to get them off prior to turning 16... which happened by two days. I promised her I wouldn't post pictures of her beautiful new smile, but suffice it to say her smile is now gorgeous.

This ferocious-looking plaster cast is being held by one of the technicians in the orthodontist's office, showing how badly aligned her teeth were a year and a half ago.


One of the things Younger Daughter has been craving for the past year is the ability to bite into a crisp juicy apple. Apparently her craving is not unusual, because the orthodontist's office gives out, as a standard gift when de-bracing, an apple dipped in caramel and then chocolate. I thought this practice of handing out gift apples was both sweet and classy.


While Younger Daughter was undergoing the de-bracing, I drove around town doing errands. I snapped this pic of some black clouds of rain moving in.


Sure enough, it poured. However on the drive home, the clouds moved on and the result was a magnificent rainbow.




We joked that God was showing approval of Younger Daughter's new smile.


Happy birthday!

13 comments:

  1. hi. our dentist says even if you have your own perfect healthy teeth you should not chomp anything hard like apples but cut them up first.
    at least cut in half so it is easier to chomp.
    now i have caps on what's left of my front teeth i am very careful.
    just a word to the wise.
    deb h.

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  2. A few years back, both of my children got their braces off on the same day, so that night we had the "braces off feast". Our dinner was baby back ribs, corn on the cob and caramel apples. We had a blast with that meal full of longed for foods!

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  3. Hope her teeth stay nice and straight. I had braces in my teens and once my twenties hit my teeth got crooked again, now in my early 30s they are quite the crooked mess, but I've accepted them. Many people make fun of my teeth but it doesn't bother me anymore, as long as I can eat that's all that matters.

    I can say though I don't agree with the comment above about not chomping on things like apples. My dentist encourages eating whole apples, corn on the cob, etc. said it helps keep plaque off your teeth, which I agree with because with raw feed domestic animals like cats, dogs, and ferrets giving bones to chew on helps keep their teeth clean, compared to kibble fed animals. Now my dentist does discourage chomping on large chunks of ice or hard candy since that could chip a tooth.

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  4. Congrats-- I hope she has better luck with the retainers than I did.

    After two years of what felt like a constant sinus headache, I broke a retainer. Two days of not using it-- no more headaches!!

    I have the same misaligned buck teeth that I started with, but at least my head doesn't hurt.

    The fact that I ended up taking 1/4 of one of my mother's Percocet for the pain from the braces (I got mine early and didn't find out until years later that other kids got off with a couple of Tylenol) probably should have told us something wasn't right.

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  5. Patrice and Don, in decades to come you're going to be amazed how often you'll look at that sweet smile and give thanks for this care and investment. Well done, all.
    A.McSp

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  6. Nice double-rainbow photos!

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  7. Patrice,

    Happy 16th Birthday to You Sweet Daughter. Congratulations on getting your braces off.

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  8. Wow! You sure live in beautiful country, we are in the desert of the Texas panhandle. We used to get rain when I was a kid here but no longer.

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  9. HAPPY SWEET 16 Younger Daughter!!!!!!! Whooooo-hooooo!!!!

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  10. Congrats and happy birthday Younger Daughter! :-)

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  11. Sweet Sixteen - How wonderful! Happy, Happy Birthday! :o)

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  12. Happy birthday from Florida! I, too, wish I could chomp on a sweet, juicy apple, but the ones we get shipped in here have been picked a year earlier while green, then artifically ripened. Yuck.

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  13. My teeth were horribly misaligned. I got braces put on them in my early 30's. The bottoms moved so bad when taken off that I had to have them put back on for another 6 months. The dentist glued on a retainer (to the backside) before removing them again. I just had the retainer taken off a few months ago. What a wonderful thing it is to be able to bite an apple again, after nearly 20 years.

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