Fun Times....

Before braces: After braces:

We picked Reggie up from school early yesterday to get his braces! We finally get to retire the dreaded retainer :o). We saw his original molds and his mouth has widened a good 1/3 of an inch, but he still has a crossbite on one side and if we didn't do the braces, his top teeth would hit the bottom and cause problems. He was very nervous and complaining about his ear when we got him. Poor thing looked like he was going to cry. We stopped at home and gave him some Advil. He was much better after the braces were on and was great the rest of the night...happy that his teeth didn't even hurt.

At 5 a.m., he crawled into our bed and Ryan noticed he felt warm. Sure enough he had a fever and was still complaining about his ear. First thing in the morning, I made an appt. and we headed out to get in the car. As I was grabbing for my keys, I remembered I left them in Ryan's car, but since we had a spare, I just got that. The car turned over and started a couple times, but would die immediately. I knew I had to get him in because he was complaining of his stomach and just looked terrible. My friend Laura came to the rescue and we were only about 15 minutes late. The doctor said there was a virus going around with ear ache, cough and fever and I was so hoping that wasn't what he had. Luckily, it was a double ear infection that gets better quickly with antibiotics. It was a pretty nasty one and Reggie never complained about his right ear, which was much worse than the one he was complaining about. It was already deformed due to the bulging (not sure what this means because we've never had ear infections before, but it didn't sound good at all!). It is strange because he had one last year or the year before and it came out of the blue like this one. The kids have had colds, but nothing major, so it was a bit of a surprise. He never had a single ear infection as a baby, so it seems even more strange to me.

We finally got back to the house just in time to send Ainsley off to school. Once she was off, I had to figure out what to do about my dead car. I called Ryan and he was wondering if it was the key. A quick call to Honda and sure enough if the key isn't programmed the car won't run. Only $160 to solve that problem!

Once Reggie started feeling better, he noticed his teeth really hurt. Thank God for Advil!!! I looked at his teeth tonight and I can see why they were hurting....the gap in the first picture is completely gone and the tooth is pulled forward, matching the other side. So, I guess we can get them off now???? I'm actually not sure how long we are going to be able to keep this up with the braces because Reggie has the perfect space in his back molars to collect anything and everything. We have always flossed because he has a second meal sitting back there almost every night. We've been spending a good 20 minutes the past 2 nights trying to floss the 2 upper back molars and we haven't been all that successful. So, we might have to decide, good bite or rotten molars....such fun we've had since yesterday.