Visit to the Dentist

Took Jackson to the dentist today. I took him a couple of weeks ago for the first visit, to a special needs clinic conveniently located in the building in which his school is located, and the doctor stuck his finger in his mouth for maybe 5 seconds, told me that was enough for the first visit, and I could come back in two weeks for a real cleaning. Eighty-five dollars.

Today, Jackson was in a great mood. The past week was a bit tough, as Jackson was pretty consistently in the type of mood he gets into where he wants to oppose everything. If I take him on the train, he wants the bus, if we are going to school, he wants to go to the gym, if I say black, he wants white …. Not unusual behavior for Jackson, except that it was pretty consistent all week which makes for a grueling existence.

So today we are waiting for the bus and I try to get him to say “Don’t scare the squirrel”. Two weeks or so ago we were walking down the street with Jack on my shoulders and there was a squirrel on the sidewalk so I stomped at him to scare him away. Jack tried to tell me “Don’t scare the squirrel” but he has trouble with the /s/ and /k/ sounds, particularly when they are together, so it came out “Don’t fair the furl”, which I laughed at, and he laughed too, when I repeated it back to him. Its funny that he can laugh at himself for his speech difficulties, and I think informative too – its obvious that he knows what he wants to say and knows how it should sound, he just can’t get his mouth to form the right sounds sometimes.

So at the bus stop he is in a fantastic mood and jumping around and looking for the bus to come and I get him to say “scare” by getting him to say the letter Q (the one K sound that he can consistently make correctly), and then “care” and then “scare”, and he gets pretty close. And then I try “Q” again, then “quirrel” and then squirrel, and he doesn’t do it so well. So then I say “Don’t scare the squirrel” for him to repeat, and he looks right in my eyes and says “Don’t scare the bunny!” and laughs. He was just sick of working at it, but in such a good mood that he made a joke about it. Sometimes he is really fun to be with, sometimes I just wish it was more often.

On the bus he is busy narrating the world passing by, announcing the taxi, the mixer (cement truck) and the big orange truck that pass by. Then some guy gets on the bus and starts walking down the aisle and sits about three seats in front of us (all three of us facing sideways on the bus). He is very big, overweight, and has a long white beard. Jack is fascinated. He sticks out his finger, points right at him, and says “Hey!, Look at that guy!”. That guy might look a little like santa claus, but his demeanor is anything but, and he is obviously annoyed. All I can do is laugh out loud and tell Jack not to point. Ironic, just about 12 months ago we were all doing everything we could to teach Jack to point and now, for the first time, I was telling him not to.

Now we are at the second visit to the dentist, and Jack is fully prepared. In the waiting room, I’ve stuck my finger in his mouth a couple of times to show him what the dentist would do, and explained that this time the dentist would also brush his teeth. Jack was not at all happy to go back into the same examination room, but he did it with suprisingly little resistance. The first time he had sat in my lap, but this time he wanted to sit all alone in the big chair. And he hated the polishing tool that the dentist used on his teeth (what a sensory nightmare!), but he kept fighting his reflex reaction to shut his mouth. His would jerk away, and then he would voluntarily turn it back so the dentist could continue. Finally, when he moved his head the wrong way, the polishing tool accidentally reopened a cut he had on his lip from last week. There was quite a bit of blood, and I think a little bit of pain, it was a little bit too much for Jackson and he sort of broke down. But his crying was not screaming – it was more like he was sad that he couldn’t handle it anymore but no panic screaming or insistence on leaving. He gave me big hug for a while, calmed himself down, and we did the fluoride treatment while he was sitting on my lap. 10 minutes later, I was dropping him off at school, and he was completely over any trauma. Really a good trip to the dentist. Attaboy Jackson.