Thursday, July 26, 2012

Nathan's first dental visit and my unique inner ear...or is it?

Most dental hygienist bring their own kids to where they work and clean their teeth. Because I work for a low income clinic (where we are unable to see people with insurance) I was legally not able to do this.

It made me a little sad I couldn't be the first one to polish Nathan's pearly whites but I figured it's probably for the best for him to get used to another hygienist and get the full experience of going in for a dental checkup.

This past Friday Luke, Nathan and I all headed to the pediatric dentist for the first time. Nathan was thrilled to see they had a huge play area.

After mastering the art of balancing a 11 month old on one leg and paperwork on the other- filling out said paperwork while trying to keep the baby grabbing the pen and permanently damaging any of his (or my) body parts---the hygienist finally came into the waiting area and called out "Nathan"

He looked at me with his excited but slightly anxious eyes and I said "that's you buddy!"

So we walked back into the operatory and chatted with the hygienist, Nicole, and Nathan got up in the chair and opened wide.




He did great. I was proud of him!

His teeth look perfect (besides an overbite) and no problems were found.

This is what he did when I said "show me your clean teeth!"





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Also on Friday Luke had a helmet appointment. I fully expected the specialist to say that we had another few months but after examining Luke and taking his age into account he said to schedule a 3 week follow up and then we'll schedule a final scan and then he'll be done!!

So maybe the helmet will be a thing of the past before his first birthday!

I'm so ready to have a baby who's head doesn't stink like dirty feet :)

And once his helmet is off his hair can start growing on the sides because he has a nice curly red mohawk going on.

I had the idea to have everyone who comes to his first bday party sign the helmet with a permanent marker and then it will be something I can keep.

So I can pull it out and show his prom date and use my squeaky mom voice to say "oooohhhh look how widdle his widdle head used to be!!!!!"

Heh.

And I'm totally not kidding.

My poor children.

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After the morning doctor appts we met my friend Dana at Chick fil A for some lunch and so she could watch Nathan for me while I took Luke to his next appt. If that wasn't enough- the other reason she came was to GIVE us a ton of little people toys and a fisher price picnic table. Yanno- cuz she's awesome n stuff.

After we ate I left Dana in the play area full of screaming kids. On the way out I gave her the "thanks so much for doing this and omg it's so loud in here-goodluck!" look and Luke and I left for the final doctor appt of the day. The ENT.

The medical assistant asked me how many ear infections Luke had had and honestly I had lost count. I'm thinking 5? The hearing test was first and surprisingly he scored within his age group!

The ENT came in the examine room and we talked a short bit. I already knew we were ready for tubes and since we had been through the process with Nathan there wasn't too much he needed to discuss.

And then when the visit was almost over- I give in to an internal "should I or shouldn't I?" mental conflict and say while turning red "Doctor, can I ask you a weird question?"

Of course he says "yes" because I think curiousity would keep anyone from saying "no" to that.

And before I know it I'm practically word "vomitting" this following paragraph. Oh dear. I.am.a.dork.

"Well...I had been debating if I should ask you this or not and I'm just gonna ask and I know you are going to think I'm crazy or something. I can...uhhh... voluntarily make this thunder noise in my ears. I've been able to do it since I was a kid and I used to do it during a nightmare and it would wake me up (why in the world did I have to include that much detail) It sounds like rolling thunder. It's completely voluntary. It only does it when I make it happen."

...pause...blink...blink...

And he says "Hmph"

I say "um... Do you want to look in my ear and see what happens when I make the sound?" and now that I have his curiousity he says he does.

He looks and I do it. He steps back and says "Yeah you can make your ear drum vibrate. I wonder if you have somehow found a way to voluntarily control the stapedius muscle (which he then explains) Maybe you did it once as a child and then over time figured out how to do it more and more."

I ask if it's common and he says somewhat impressed "No, actually I've never seen that before" Not knowing what to say I look at Luke and say "see, told ya your mommy is weird."

I felt validated for all the times my childhood friends said I had to be making it up when I told them I could make a thunder noise in my head (which sounds crazy enough that it's surprising I did have friends!)

After we talked a bit more about scheduling Luke's tube surgery and his thoughts on water exposure afterwards he leaves the room and the medical assistant looks at me obviously amused. She says "that's neat- you have a party trick!" and I said "yeah a party trick only I can hear" heh.

When I told Marcus about the whole thing he says "I can do that too."

Well...

Hmph.

Then we teasingly wonder if maybe we're the only two people in the world who can voluntarily make their ear drum vibrate. We joke that maybe that's how we found each other in the first place. Our inner ears vibrate at the same frequency. We honed in on eachother!

But then I mention this at work and one of the dentist I work with says she can do it too!

So maybe this is common?

So tell me---can you make a rolling thunder noise in your ears? Have you ever heard of this before? If you can- did you ever use it for anything? Like me- I used it to tune people out when I was a kid (bad, I know) and used it to wake up from nightmares if I realized it was a dream.

C'mon- join my weirdness!

Anyone...?

Anybody at all....?




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