I heart the dotter's dentist.  Into the office, out in, oh, 45 minutes, happy dotter, shiny new "princess tooth".

But first, there was the valium.

The dentist had sent us home last time with a cute little envelope with one cute little pink valium pill.

It was lost (or so I thought) when OmegaDad cleaned the car preparatory to our weekend of frivolity.  So, when OmegaDad took off from work yesterday and dropped by my office to swap cars, I sent him haring off to the dentist's office to get another cute little pink valium pill.  Then, last night, I found the first one.  Then I lost it again, having carefully placed it in a place where I knew I would remember it.  Hah.

This morning, an hour prior to the dentist's appointment, I duly got two spoons and some yogurt out, crushed the valium in the big spoon, and dolloped spoonsful of (yummy!) strawberry yogurt on top.

Then I beckoned to the dotter.

She eyeballed the spoon dubiously, knowing there was Medicine there.  "Eww.  What's that orange stuff?" quoth she.

"Medicine.  Take it," I said, in my best you-do-it-or-there-will-be-dire-consequences voice, thrusting the spoon vaguely in the direction of her mouth.

"No, no!  I'll do it!  Let me do it!"

Hm.  Okay, so I handed the spoon over to her.  And I warned her not to spill it.  She began counting three.  She eyed the spoon.  She stopped.  She started again.  She covered her mouth with her other hand.

THEN...then, she swooped the spoon overhead.  And spilled it.

A great big glop of strawberry yogurt mixed with crushed valium landed on the floor.

A mother envisioning a dotter writhing in pain on the dentist's chair lost it entirely, and shrieked, "GODDAMMIT, Dotter, I TOLD you not to spill it!"

Not a shining mommy moment, to be sure.

Then she spilled the remaining yogurt.

I fumed, I fussed, I called the dentist's office to make alternative arrangements, I stomped around...and then I found the (twice lost, once found) other valium pill.  Lather, rinse, repeat, sans the spillage.  The dotter was quite valiant with the valium, taking repeated glops of yogurt until we got the entire dose down, even though it tasty funny and was crunchy.

And then...fifteen minutes later...the valium struck.

Oh, my. 

Long-time readers may recall the mocha birthday cake with chocolate-covered espresso beans.  We have dosed the child up with mood- or mind-altering drugs twice (by accident) prior to today, to wit: large amounts of caffeine in concentrated doses.  I hate to admit, but it was truly funny.

This was the first time I have dosed her up on purpose.  Last night, I realized what I was going to do, and a frisson of worry trickled down my spine.  Valium.  Favored drug for abuse by bored middle-aged housewives.  Gateway drug to bigger and better things.  Eww, in a mommy's mind.  Really.  It kind of gave me the willies to be dosing her up with the stuff, even though it was In A Good Cause.

The dotter on caffeine is hilarious (and tiring).  The dotter on valium is, alas, also hilarious, though much less work to keep up with.

In the car on the way to the dentist's office, she spewed a stream of consciousness happy crooning of silly stuff.  It was when she recited the "God is Great" prayer--as the prelude to the "snack" at "school"--in a high-pitched chipmunk voice and then followed up with, "I'm the helper!  I'm passing out the napkins!  Here, have one!  Oooh, I'm going to throw them all up in the air!  Wheee!  Catch!" that I started snickering to myself.

On the way into the dentist's office, she staggered a tiny bit from one side to the other and announced, "Oooh.  I'm all wobbly."

And afterwards, as we began the nap drive that I knew was inevitable, she proudly proclaimed, "I'm not going to go to sleep, I'll just do a few things first..." and then fell fast asleep in the next breath.

So now she has a "princess tooth" (the crown, you see) which she is very proud of, has had her first well-controlled dose of mood-altering drugs, is sort of dozy, and has a very good dental experience safely under her belt.  No scary dentist visits for her, thank heavens.

It's been a toothy week for the OmegaFamily; I had a filling put in last week, the dotter got her crown, and OmegaDad...sigh...

OmegaDad, whom I have been hounding to go to the dentist for years (what is it with guys and "toughing it out"?)...

A tooth split.  It happened to split just as every single dentist in town was heading out of town to go to the state dental convention.  I found out about this amazing convention when I tried to get him an urgent appointment at my dentist.  No go.  OmegaDad, when informed, toughed it out some more.  (Imagine a deep, gut-level Marine "Hnnnh!" grunt.)

By late Sunday afternoon, it was too much.  He was in pain, excruciating pain (he had been distracted during our expedition to the river).  I made record time back up the hill from Former State Capital back to Hippy Dippy Enclave in the Woods, worried that he was either going to pass out or going to smash his head into the dashboard to stop the pain.  It was not a fun drive; the only consolation was that the dotter, exhausted from sun and fun, was fast asleep and didn't get totally frantic.

Luckily, the gods smiled on us on Monday morning; as I was talking to the dentist's office staff, someone cancelled their 9 a.m. appointment, and OmegaDad was swiftly taken care of.

Hopefully, this is all the dental drama we will deal with for quite a while.

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