Thursday, January 25, 2007

Change

Little Boy got his first fillings today, three of them, and a cap as well. I feel like a bad Mum when I think about that, why the hell didn't I floss more? Anyway. When he smiles, I can see the cap, an ugly silver chunk tucked in the corner of his beautiful smile. I hate it. It makes me want to cry. His perfect smile, changed forever. Now we'll have pictures from Before and After today.

Usually, the children grow and change in such tiny ways, we're spared the shock of it. Other days we come face to face with these changes, the little trials and tolls exacted upon the perfect bodies of our once newborn babies. There are fillings, scars, and tiny freckles that appear where there were none before. We know, because we are the mothers, and the warm, solid flesh of our children is our holy land, the place where we worship whatever Creator we are grateful to.

And so I mourn a little today, and I feel a little silly, because it's just a filling. It's not an amputation. The tooth will fall out. And anyway, he does still smile, after all.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Cindy,
When I was six I was hit in the face, hard enough that my budding adult eye tooth was knocked through my flesh. I couldn't brush that tooth for months, and it developed a cavity. The dentist put a plastic filling on it, but it fell off. So then, it was removed and pin was drilled and set in to hold the next filling in. But you can see the pin through the filling, so it looks like I have a dead tooth.

Anyway, (I have to run. The toddler is having a tempertantrum about the telephone.) I just wanted to say, don't feel bad. It could be worse.

Cindy said...

Hi Sara:

I'm sorry to hear about your tooth. And you're right, it's a baby tooth. It could be worse.