About Those Caps

I haven't been able to get a photo that really shows all of the capped teeth, but I got a couple that give you the general idea.

Remember this photo of Peeper's teeth before yesterday?

 

Here are Peeper's teeth today:

Shrike thinks I'm being stupid and maybe I am, but I'm really not trying to be a jackass here, it's just how I feel.

I'm not on a fishing expedition, and I really don't want to hear a bunch of reassurances about how they're just fine and I'm being silly, and nobody can tell, because I can tell, and that's really all that matters to me.

It bothers the hell out of me and not a God damn thing can be done about it, so I guess I just have to deal with it, but don't fucking tell me it's nothing, because it's something to me.

The thing is, I absolutely hate how the caps look.

I'm glad that the dentist didn't try to drill too much and break her teeth. I'm glad that those three are now protected from cavities. I'm really glad that they now make tooth-colored caps, so she doesn't have big silver teeth, which would be about a million times worse, but I am still really not happy with them, at all.

I haven't gotten a really good look at the cap on the lateral incisor yet, in real-life or photos, but as best as I can tell, it doesn't look much different from its uncapped mate, so I don't guess I really have any complaints about it.

The central ones, though. Oh my God.

They are huge, and too "perfectly" shaped and look totally fake. They stick out past the others by a mile, and it looks like she's wearing some kind of Halloween costume teeth.

Look at the photos.

Before, the two middle teeth were rounded and just a bit bigger than the two on either side. Now they are half-again the size of their neighbors and perfectly square, like a couple of fucking Chicklets stuck in her mouth.

I swear, I didn't go looking for fault with them. When the dentist told us she'd capped them instead of filling them, I was actually glad, because I figured that meant we wouldn't have to worry so about those three having any additional decay. I was almost wishing she'd gone ahead and done that fourth one, just to be safe.

I didn't open her mouth to inspect them. I didn't say to myself, "Hmmm, let's see if I can tell a difference. Let's see if they look fake."

The dentist told us they'd look just like regular teeth, so I fully expected to not see any difference, other than the lack of cavities.

But there's a huge difference, and I didn't have to look for it.

Before she was even good and awake, maybe even before she was allowed to nurse, I was holding her and she was crying, and she opened her mouth enough for her teeth to show and, "Oh my God! Those things are huge!"

They just jumped right out at me.

The overwhelming impression was that the two in the middle are way too big for the rest of the teeth, and for her mouth. They remind me of a seven-year-old, who has gotten just those couple of permanent teeth, but hasn't grown into them yet.

Except that their neighbors aren't going to quickly be replaced by bigger versions. This is how her mouth is going to look for the next four or five years, until it's Tooth Fairy time at our house.

It also occured to me just a little while ago that, you know, we didn't consent to caps. We consented to fillings, and nobody mentioned the possibility of caps.

Now, had the dentist come out and talked to us, and explained why she wanted to do the caps instead and why fillings would be a bad idea, I'm 100% sure we would have consented, but we were never even consulted about it, and the more I think about it, the more that bothers me.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the dentist, and I don't really blame her (Well, maybe a little. I mean, can't she see that they don't match?) but I just feel like we gave her the world's cutest little toddler mouth and she fucked it all up. Without our permission.

I mean, obviously (obviously!), Peeper is still the world's cutest toddler, but now the world's cutest toddler has big fucking freaky fake front teeth.

And I hate them.

And I hate that I hate them.

I mean, they're part of her now, so shouldn't I love them, just like I love the rest of her?

But it just makes me so upset to even look at them.

I don't care if nobody else can even tell the difference. (But how can you not? I mean, look at the photos!)

I can tell the difference.

I know that they are not her. They are not right. They are just wrong.

It's not about them making her somehow "not cute" or even "less cute" because I don't think that's the case, but just, well dammit, she was perfect, and now she's not, and nobody asked us before doing it, and seriously, how could the dentist not see that they are way to big for her? How could she not, I don't know, use smaller caps? Grind them down smaller? Something.

So, now what?

I mean, I can say something to the dentist when we go for the follow-up next Friday, but what good will it do?

Shrike already thinks I'm crazy for even being concerned about it, so she'd probably be mortified if I complained about how they look, and I'm certainly not going to complain about how they look in front of Peeper, because I don't ever want her to know that I don't like them.

But I really do want to say something. To at least ask why they are so fucking big. (I would probably use less inflamatory language.)

It's not like she can make them smaller now - certainly not without knocking her out again, and I don't suppose that would make sense to do - but I think it might make me feel a little better to at least talk to her about it.

I don't know why it bothers me so much, but it really does. I just feel sick to my stomach every time I see them.

Maybe not sick so much, as just that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. That "something bad has happened that can't be undone," feeling. I guess it's similar to how I'd feel if she'd had some sort of injury that left a minor scar.

I would know that it wasn't tragically disfiguring, and most people would never even notice it, but it would still always bother me, because it was something that happened to my baby, to mar her perfection.

(Let me emphasize, though, that I do not feel that way at all about her surgical scar. That surgery saved her life, and that scar is a fucking badge of honor, for all that she (and we) went through.)

I mean, she's still the cutest thing ever, but now she's the cutest thing ever - with funny-looking teeth.

I hate that I think that about them; I hate that I think that about her, but I do, and I don't know how to stop feeling that way.

I also kind of hate that I am so invested in her appearance. I mean, she is (and I think I am being at least somewhat objective here) quite cute, but that's not even in the top 100 of her best qualities, and I didn't really realize how important it's become to me.

I always thought that it was the beautiful girls, who've spent their lives hearing compliments about their own appearance, who were so concerned with their children's appearance, but maybe it's just the opposite. Maybe since having strangers constantly complimenting my child  (and, thus, by some weird extension, me, although I had nothing to do with that) is such a totally new experience to me, it means that much more.

And, of course, there's the part about how I already felt guilty about the cavities in the first place. Maybe the dentist was right about it being from night nursing, or maybe I haven't been brushing them well enough, or maybe I'm feeding her too much carby food, or whatever other reason I might come up with at any given moment.

Ever since I first noticed them, every time I've seen the cavities, I've felt awful about them, and as much as I was dreading yesterday, I was also looking forward to having them repaired.

But instead of erasing the visible signs of whatever it is that I've done to cause my child's teeth to rot, yesterday just made it all the more obvious.

Last night, I was googling for more information on either caps or congenitally missing teeth (hey - at least that one's not my fault!) when I came across a post on some sort of a toddler tooth forum, in which someone asked, "What do you think of the parents when you see a toddler with silver caps on their teeth?"

Well, I know what I thought of them before yesterday.

I guess now I just have to think that they don't have as much dental insurance as we do, so they couldn't afford the tooth-colored ones.

God, I can only imagine how distraught I'd be about all this if they'd put a bunch of silver in her mouth. I suppose I should at least be thankful about that, but instead, all I can think is, "Damn, those teeth are big."