El Dentista

Even at four years old I still feel like Joaquin has so few milestones left.  Their first year is so full of new experiences that when they get scarcer it feels a little depressing.  But big boy that he is, Joaquin just had his first dentist visit.  Woo-hoo!  He's come with me several times and sat on my lap during the cleaning.  So the office wasn't a scary place.  And of course they have cool tools and chair that moves up and down, so that helps as well.  Honestly I could tell he was nervous, but he was very good.  The hygenist, Karen (my hygenist from way back, she's been cleaning my teeth since I was a girl) got him to open up by asking him how many teeth he had.  Stymied, Joaquin responded, "As many as I need".  After Karen stopped laughing she asked if she could count them.  She started with the bottom one through ten.  Then moved up to the top and continued eleven through twenty.  When she told Joaquin there were twenty, he said, "Yeah, two tens."  He really likes numbers this one.  He's always making new connections about numbers and adding and the patterns of counting.  And even though we like to teach him things this he does on his own.  Anyway after that he and Karen were good buddies and he let her clean his teeth and even took the polishing pretty well.   All he said was that it tickled.  The final step was a fluoride foam in trays.  He sat there for four minutes with those things on.  I was very impressed.  Although Karen gave him the little sucker tube to suck up his saliva and I think he sucked out most of the fluoride instead.  Overall he was as good a patient as you could expect a little guy to be.  He even got to pick a bouncy ball from the treasure chest for good behavior.  (They had that treasure chest when I was a little girl!)  Okay, random Joaquin story.  Today I was singing "Jamie is a silly girl, silly girl, silly girl" etc. while changing her diaper.  Joaquin starts making his own words, first "Chita is a fast dog".  The best was for Esperanza (despite us not having decided on a name, to Joaquin this new baby is Esperanza).  "Esperanza is a floating girl, floating girl, floating girl".  You tell him about amniotic fluid and then.....