This afternoon while we were at the Khoreys' and I was giving Buggy her bottle of diluted juice* I caught a glimpse of the rarely-seen top backside of one of her front teeth, and on it I saw a small dark grayish speck. My heart stopped. Oh no. It's way too early for her teeth to be decaying, and we only just started giving her juice (two ounces to five ounces of water, so really very little juice, at that!), and she absolutely loves to have her teeth brushed. Perhaps it was all the banana she consumes; last Saturday she downed five of them, so that was all I could figure. I immediately wanted to call Rob for support; I felt sad and ashamed that I'd let such a thing happen to my child. I thought of one of my old students I first had as a kindergardener, most of whose teeth were edged in dark silver fillings, and a horrific vision of Buggy with the same metallic grin crept into my mind. I tried prying her mouth open so I could scratch at the spot, fearing that my fingernail might catch the ragged edge of rotting tooth and cause her extreme pain, but she wisely denied me entrance. So when we got home we swooped into the bathroom and set to work with the toothbrush (it makes my heart ache with pride and joy a little bit to see just how much pleasure she derives from practicing good oral hygiene). I laid her down across my lap and had another look: pearly white and blessedly devoid of any flaws - for now. My hope for her is that her teeth stay clean and free of holes until she's at least fourteen, the age I was when I got my first cavity, which sent me from the dentist's chair in tears.
*She is a new devotee of Trader Joe's Green Plant juice - the typical green elixer of fruit juice, spirulina, chlorella, barley grass, and powdered spinach and broccoli. Its murky mossy-sludge-mud hue looks vile indeed but tastes like heaven. When I'd told Noah that I was going through the stuff by the case while I was in labor and afterwards, he brought up the valid theory that she'd probably already gotten a taste for it which may explain why she'd taken to it so readily, more so than anything I've ever given her. Fine by me.
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