Braces imminent, and Kairos meme: comic strips

[hamsterwoman]

It just hit me the other day that O is getting his braces put on THIS WEEK. We've stocked up on apple sauce and Odwalla juices and yogurt, and will buy ice cream and chocolate pudding as needed. Any last minute suggestions/words of warning? (I never wore braces myself, because i refused, and l had Invisalign, which come off for eating and so don't

Comments

[dieastra]

For how long are the braces supposed to be in? You can't eat normally with them? He can't just eat chocolate pudding for months? I am confused, which is easily done ;) I am glad that I avoided them as a child myself. We had one in class who wore one and you could hardly hear what he was saying as he was hissing like a snake. They were not very good back then.

One of my biggest worries of old age is getting false teeth to take out like my grandmother. Ewww!

[hamsterwoman]

From what I understand, braces take 2-3 years, depending on the severity of the problem they're trying to correct and how good you are about treating them well. (L has Invisalign, which take a little longer, and she had hers put in the spring of 8th grade, so she's had them for about 2.5 years now and it will be close to 3 by the time she can stop wearing them during the day.) And you're supposed to wear a retainer at night for the rest of your life, basically, otherwise the teeth drift back out of alignment

[dieastra]

I didn't know about the retainer at nights. I thought they stayed that way on their own later. Not sure I would want something in my mouth while sleeping.

Surprisingly, a few weeks ago we got a picture of Scott (John Barrowman's husband) with braids he has just gotten in. I didn't know that you could also do it as an adult. He is over 50 already.

Ah, so only the first weeks, like when I had my wisdom teeth removed. I couldn't open my mouth properly at all for a while after that, so yeah anything mushy was nice. How about mashed banana, or would that also be too sticky? I loved that.

[hamsterwoman]

I had also thought the teeth just stayed in place after, but apparently not. Which makes me even gladder, retroactively, that I never had braces, because the idea of sleeping with something in my mouth for the rest of my life also grosses me out. I'm sure you get used to it and stop noticing it, the same way I don't notice the rings on my fingers or whatever, but still.

Grownups can get them, yep. Actually, when L was going through her Invisalign treatment (the transparent trays you can't even tell someone's wearing), so was my 50+-year-old customer at work, and I was telling each of them that the other sympathized with their suffering :)

They actually have this thing here which are squeezy pouches of mashed banana mixed with apple sauce (to make it flow more easily), which you can eat without a spoon. It's a great idea -- they're tasty and portable and does not go bad the way fresh fruit does. O always takes one to school for lunch (even before braces), and we usually take a couple of boxes of them along when we travel.

[perpetual]

Good choices! I have a soft spot for Foxtrot, as it was the first newspaper comic that started making references to current geek culture. And the iguana is so cute.

(Yeah, I'm still here. Waiting for a flight and there's wireless, so what else am I gonna do but go on LJ? Plot my novel? Nah...)

[hamsterwoman]

(Well, I'm certainly glad you still are! :) Have a good flight!)

Quincy the iguana is adorable, and probably my favorite part of Foxtrot if I'm honest. It was a struggle not to just include a bunch of Quincy strips and nothing else :P But also, yeah, Jason was a consumer of a lot of the same genre canons I was, and it was very nice to see in a mainstream comic.

[giallarhorn]

Braces aren't nearly so disruptive as they used to be, I think? When I got mine in, my teeth/jaw was slightly sore and sensitive so I stuck to soft foods for a day, but was fine eating more or less normally after. A lot of it is less of you can't eat certain foods, as is there's certain foods that're just more difficult to eat/deal with? Sticky food (candy, esp chewy types), and harder foods or anything with bone in it I do avoid, but otherwise it's a relatively normal diet. You usually can get a good sense of what you can eat, and what's too much of a hassle by thinking it out

[hamsterwoman]

Braces aren't nearly so disruptive as they used to be, I think?

That's good to hear! My friend M's daughter, who is a little older than O, just got her braces put on over the summer, and she seems OK now, though the first couple of days/week(s) were quite rough. But I don't know how her diet has had to change or not.

The thing I'm most concerned about is veggies. Is it possible to eat them raw (not in the first week, in general), or does that require getting them basically shredded?

I had a timely discovery of it right when I was starting to consider grad school, and the slow creeping realization that it's describing my life both amuses and terrifies me.

Ha, I can see how it would!

but Foxtrot always felt slightly funnier as a kid, whereas C&H I came to appreciate more with age. Ah, that's a really nice distinction, actually. I was already a teenager when I discovered both, but I will say that while in Foxtrot, I continue to sort of, well, not identify with, but read it from the perspective of the rather Jason-like kid I was

[giallarhorn]

I think it does definitely vary from person to person in how sore/sensitive you are, but I was pretty much back to normal after the first day? One of my labmates just got braces as well, and she seems to feel fine now

[hamsterwoman]

As of day 3 of braces, O seems generally OK, but can't eat anything more solid than well-boiled vegetables. Hopefully he's going feel up to more soon, because it's hard keeping a teenage boy fed on soups and porridges!

Thank you for all the advice!

(and also feeling sorry for his parents).

Haha, same! Also his teachers and the babysitter. :P

[zvuv]

I *loved* Far Side back in high school. I think I first came across it because of my roommate. Haven't thought about it in years, so thanks for that. :)

Good luck with braces. I was terrible with them and my overbite came back. I guess my advice is try to make it as clear as possible to O how important it is to do it right, so that you are done as quickly as possible and don't have to think about it again. I think this might be my one regret, how cavalier I was about not fixing my teeth...

[hamsterwoman]

Far Side has really faded from public consciousness, as huge as it was back in those days, right? Which is a pity, because I looked over my book of it, and it's still just as funny. I mean, it sounds like it was intentional on Gary Larson's part, not to drive it into the ground/get off the ride before he'd jumped the shark, but still kind of sad that the present generation isn't aware of the genius

[zvuv]

On the other hand, it just so happens this was posted yesterday on my favorite local blog, Popville: https://www.popville.com/2017/10/midvale-meets-georgetown/

[hamsterwoman]

Hee! :D I'm glad it's alive and well out in the wild :)

[ani_mama]

My kid bounced back really quick after getting braces put on. But just in case, maybe pick up some cream o'soups or nutritional drinks like Ensure? In case O can't deal with normal foods for a few days, those will be more filling than juice.

I found out about Dilbert when Husband and I were both working for Sony. Everybody, including us, had Dilbert strips hanging on the cubicles because Sony was...Sony. Then Sony decided to produce Dilbert as an animated show. I tell ya, working on a Dilbert animation show for Dilbertian corporation overlords was another sort of hell...

We only made one season. It was not a hit because of Dilbertian reasons, including overpaid executives who had no clue what they were doing. If you ever get a chance to watch the show, look for a background character dressed in a suit jacket that looks like my icon. That is me. Most of the animation crew shows up as background characters.

[hamsterwoman]

Good to hear re: Kid and braces! I proposed protein shakes to O, but they didn't end up buying any. I guess we'll see how hungry he gets once it actually happens -- I suspect he's going to want then/something like that. And I hadn't thought about cream o' soups, but that's a good idea, too. O likes soup, but mostly the kind with chunks in, and I wasn't sure clear broth was going to cut it, but this is definitely another alternative. (We usually don't go for creamy soups, but hopefully we can find something he likes...) Thank you for all the suggestions!

working on a Dilbert animation show for Dilbertian corporation overlords Oh, hah! I've watched the Dilbert show -- maybe even all of it that was made (from the air dates, it looks like I would've still been living at home, with cable TV, until late in season 2) -- but hadn't realized or had forgotten that it was made by Sony. That's got to be a weird situation for sure! (as I can well believe in any large company like Sony being, well, Dilbert-esque.) But now I kind of totally