Asher's Visit to Dentist

In my childhood days, it really didn't bother me if I have nice set of teeth. The adults told me that I only need to start taking care when I have my adult teeth. I can't remember when I actually started brushing my teeth. I only remember even to the age of 7 to 8, I sometimes skipped brushing teeth in the toilet. When no one is watching, I just gargled a few times, then I lied to the whole world that I had done my job. However, my teeth became more and more yellowish as I grew older. Some of my milk teeth eventually dropped by themselves while others became shaky. My mum wanted to pull them off while I refused and struggled. Some of the milk teeth were too stubborn to come off even with my mum's hand pulling, and that was the time I was brought to the dentist. Of course, the dentist knew all my dirty secrets, from the look at my multiple-badly-decayed teeth.

My adult teeth didn't grew impressively well and neat. I ended up having a pair of "dracula" teeth during my teenage days, which made me very shy to show off with big smile. At the age of 19, with mum's consent and dad's sponsorship, I did the crowning. From then, I began to smile and laugh without covering my mouth.

Now that Asher is 4 years old. I started to realise he is following my footstep. Since birth till now, he didn't have a proper brushing habit either. MIL only use towel to casually clean his teeth during shower, and that is all. To make it worse, the grand-parents will pamper the boys with gummies everyday. Well, the old belief: milk teeth will soon drop off, children will eventually know how to take care of their teeth when they are older.

I realise that Asher's teeth had turned yellowish (just liked childhood days) and suggested to bring him to dentist. But I only recieved cold water from the rest of the family. "He is too young, and he may be frightened by the experience", "So serious meh, its only milk teeth and they are going to drop off soon", "Dentist just want to make $, of course they will say its better to let the children start going to dentist early". Then I started asking myself: am I really so Kiasu or Kiasee, that I am doing things unnecessarily.

Its was a conversation with a relative that I made up my mind I must take Asher to dentist. "Next time when Asher grow up and has ugly teeth, he will start to blame mummy for not helping him to take good care of his teeth."

Before I sent Asher to the dentist, I did some homework: made some enquiries with the clinic, the dentist and the nurse, such as whether the clinic has very young patients , which dentist are better with handling young children, how do they calm and comfort the nervous children, how is the procedure of cleaning children's teeth like, etc.

After much assurance, I finally got Asher mentally prepared and brought him to the dentist. On the first visit, the dentist introduced some equipment to him and just did some cleansing and polishing. I could tell Asher was very scared and nervous when I held his cold hands and trembling legs. But I am proud that he didn't shed a tear. However, the dentist told me that he had 8 cavities which need to be mended. I was also told that gummies are worse than hard candies as they are more sticky. That was a shock to me - so many decays! If no actions taken or with no proper care, the holes will get bigger and deeper. In the worse situation, the teeth will have to be removed before the adult teeth are ready to grow out, which eventually will affect the growth of the adult teeth. Just imagine, a handsome face with ugly teeth...

The dentist understand the short attention span of children and suggested to fix 2 teeth for every subsequent visit. He made a balloon with a rubber hand glove and gave it to Asher. Mummy also bought the spiderman toothbrush to encourage him to brush his teeth more often.

On the 2nd visit, the dentist asked Asher how many teeth he would like to fill up that day. Without prior experience, Ahser innocently said he wanted to fix all 8. During the procedure, I could see Asher clenching his fist and a drop of tear dripped down from the side of his cheek, but he stayed quiet and unmoved. Again I felt so proud of him, for his endurance and courage. I rewarded him by buying him mini ice-cream, but also reminded him not to take too many sweets. The grandparents had also become more co-operative by giving less gummies. Thank you.

The visits were scheduled every 7 to 10 days. By the 4th visit, Asher had shown some sign of phobia. I asked the dentist if the last 2 cavities were in "critical" condition, otherwise I would prefer to take a break and go back to him in 3-6 months time. Well, the answer is if we could clean the teeth well, there should not be a problem.

So for now, I have children toothpaste of 3 different flavours displayed at the basin. Hopefully, this can make it more fun for them to be motivated to brush their teeth.

Aron, I shall wait till he is 4. But I doubt he will be as calm as his brother when he visit the dentist. I will expect some drama to happen. Let's see...

My Birthday Celebrations

Time seems to fly faster & faster as you grow older each year. Probably, when half of your life time has passed, you will become more reluctant to celebrate your birthday. Then somewhere, a very tiny little part of you still hope to get surprises.

Based on past years' experience, I would usually have 3 parts of celebrations. Part 1 - with my "Lover", AC. Usually, we will spend an afternoon together, have a good meal in some nice restaurant and have an endless chat, with a sweet surprise gift from her. But this year, she has to post celebrate it with me, due to her confinement. Part 2 - with my entire family. As usual, surrounded by my sons, hubby, mum & in-laws, there will be a cake (yes, the green pandan kaya cake from Bengawan Solo again, its our family tradition), which my 2 lovely boys would be too eager to blow off the candles for me, before I could even make a wish. Also, the hearty birthday songs which they will never get tired of singing, plus the priceless hugs and kisses that I never get enough from them. There is a bonus gift from Asher this year. He drew a cake on a piece of paper, without any candles, wordings or decorations. But to mummy, its good enough. As for Aron, he did something sweet too, feed the mummy with his cake.

Part 3 - private celebration with hubby. For the past couple of years, being an IT guy, hubby probably felt most comfortable getting some IT gadgets as gifts to pamper me. But this year, I don't feel like receiving such expensive gifts and I don't see the need of those stuff, I hoped to have something different, which can be cheap and fun. Leaving just this much of suggestion for him to work on could be pretty stressful for him. In order to avoid disappointment for myself, I decided to plan for my own celebration. I thought of some crazy things I wanted to do with him and I gave him the instructions to follow, that was 3 weeks before my birthday. Despite giving him instructions, I still doubted that he is comfortable in taking actions.

Couple of nights before my birthday, I saw hubby keep surfing the net from his iPhone in the middle of the night. He seemed to have trouble sleeping. "Was my request that stressful? Or was he worried about his job (since economy is so bad now)? Maybe its menopause..." I wondered.

On the day of our private celebration, he acted as if he didn't have any plan. Well I wasn't disappointed at all, cos I already told myself he just simply has too much (decent) man's ego to do it. Somehow, we ended up having dim sum lunch at Wah Lok Restaurant at Carlton Hotel, which I had told him (a few times) the food there was pretty good. While I was thinking of just going shopping with him after that, he took me to a place that we had never been. Yes, that was my request, he took me to a budget hotel. And as per my request again, he presented a fun toy to me. The whole experience was quite fun, and we had a good laugh, as we felt so awkward there. Well, he also did something extra, that I had not requested for it - booked a massage session at Aramsa. So, as we ran out of time, we had to rush off from the hotel to get to Bishan in time for our massage.

In fact, this was one of my most enjoyable time with hubby, to be able to spend some private time with him freely. If we could just spend a few hours of happy time together, just once in a while, I will be contented.

Thank you, hubby, for taking the effort to take leave, do internet research on your sleepless nights and doing crazy things for me. Love You Forever.