It hurt me more than it hurt you

I'm the worst patient in the world.

Just putting it out there. I'm sure at least my DH would vouch for me on this one (although I'd rather he didn't).

Today I was even worse than that. I was the worst mother of the worst patient in the world.

My beautiful girl (8yrs. old) had to have her first filling done today. She is not the easiest dental patient in the world, but she was extremely brave when the dentist froze her mouth. I, of course, was not there yet (DH and I split up kid-drop-off duties). She may have been amazing had her Dad stayed with her instead of me. They sense my fear. They know that I will jump to their defense and try and bite off the head of He-who-is-causing-them-pain. Not that their Dad won't defend them when necessary, he just doesn't fall for most of their crap like I do.

As tears were running down her face, I was practically *begging* the dentist (our uncle) to take it easy on her. Of course he was. He loves her. But I had to hide my face and not speak for fear that she would see my weakness. Tears were streaming down my own face.

When we left, I took her to pick out whatever she wanted from a magazine store: a teeny-bopper magazine, an Archie comic... things I would NEVER let her near usually. The guilt. What did she choose? A Search-and-Find book (kinda like Where's Waldo) and a Hershey's cookbook.

How did I get so lucky?

They figured out the truth!!! Run for cover!

I had a life-altering experience today. Ok, not life-altering, but definitely something that makes me question my sanity at ever having decided to have children.
Something you dread as a parent, but you know that it's inevitable. You just hope they won't figure it out until MUCH later. Or ever.

My beautiful daughter, at 8 years old, has figured out that we, her parents, have no actual control over her.

(Please give me a minute here. I hear shrieking in my head. Wait. That's me!)

We took the kids to the dentist. The Boy (6 yrs. old) and The Monkey (3 yrs. old) were wonderful. Didn't want to participate, but they did it anyway.

Then The Girl got into the dentist chair. She wouldn't let him check her teeth. Finally, we tickled her mouth open a bit and lo-and-behold - a cavity! Then, she wouldn't let him polish her teeth. I had to take her to a different room and have a talk with her. "He will be gentle, but you have to let the dentist clean your teeth so they don't all rot and give you stinky breath and fall out until you look like an old hag out of some Brothers Grimm story." Phew. It worked. She got back in the chair and whined through the cleaning.

By the way, did I mention that the dentist is our uncle. Just sayin. Must have felt good to be him today.

Where did the world come crashing down for me? When he tried to put fluoride on her teeth. Just to be clear, this is the easiest part of the checkup. He uses his finger and just rubs the fluoride onto the teeth, leaves it there for 1 minute, then rinses it off. She wouldn't do it. She screamed, cried, escaped!!! She got off the chair and left the room and would not come back!

Did I mention that the dentist is our uncle. Just checking.

What do we do now? Any suggestions would be most appreciated. Please leave your comments to help us deal with this.

We go back to the dentist on Tuesday for the filling. What are the chances...