LJIdol - Week 21 - Gadgets

[monkeysugarmama]

Comments

[roina_arwen]

Very interesting! I had retainers as a kid (my teeth were too "chalky" to stand up to actual braces) but I've never heard of a Frankel before.

You've got a few typos (Waiting for the bus onE afternoon; after my parent's went to bed) but otherwise well done. :)

[monkeysugarmama]

Ooh! Thank you for noticing those!!

I wonder if it's Freudian that I almost always accidentally type "parents" plural as the possesive tense "parent's."

[xo_kizzy_xo]

*knocks wood* The only dental appliance I have acquaintance with it is a night guard...*shudders at the picture of the Frankel*

Back in the old days there were some kids who had to wear not only braces, but a contraption that strapped around their head with a thin half-moon piece of metal that around the jaw area like some sort of retainer...*trying to think of what it's called*...

But hey, look at the pretty smile in the after pic!

[monkeysugarmama]

I had a night guard too, I am a notorious teeth grinder, as is my daughter! I hada dentist tell me my molars were like hippos teethe they were so ground down!

I just rememberthat thing you are talking about being called "head gear." I am a huge Better Off Dead fan, and the girl Lane's dad makes him take on a date has one. John Cusak refers to it as "that weird antennea thing" on her head. Tht would have been pretty mortifying.

[xo_kizzy_xo]

I'm a grinder too. I actually bit through 2 night guards a couple of years ago. The surgeon had to paint over the bitten parts with liquid resin. I ended up biting through those, too, so I had to get one of those super heavy-duty jobs that makes me look like a pufferfish.

[monkeysugarmama]

Good lord!

I gave up on wearing mine. Half the time I would forget to pop it in before going to sleep and the other half I'd just push it out of my mouth in the middle of the night anyway.

I don't think I am as bad about it now as I used to be, although when I get stressed, some mornings I will wake up with my jaw hurting.

[eqfe]

A very intersting post. Especially given the current obsession with teeth. I work with two woman in their 40's who wear braces, and it seems to me that at times I'm the last holdout on the teeth whitener bandwagon.

You have a great talent to gently extract the lessons that aspect of our lives are meant to teach us. I love how you strive to be the best parent you can be, by trying to learn from your own childhood. Its something I've strived to do also. Thanks for another lesson.

[n_decisive]

I don't get my teeth whitened, either, although if I keep drinking coffee like I do, I probably ought to. *sigh*

I'd be willing to bet that your orthodontist's kids had really lovely holidays built around the cash parents were forking out for Frankels. :(

A lovely story and a lovely smile.

[monkeysugarmama]

It's funny you should mention the orthodontist getting rich off us. My mom took me to a chiropractor for a few years around that same time.

Dr. Malena insisted on seeing me once a week in the beginning and then once a month after that. He was always appalled at my spine because I was in gymnastics etc.

My mom thought it was so important for us to go until one day she opened the Atlanta Journal and Constitution and saw he and his wife featured on the front of the "Living" section in their amazing new home!

She was like "Forget this snake oil salesman!"

[monkeysugarmama]

I love iced tea, I am a Georgia girl born and bred, so what do you expect? And I think i will wind up getting my smile whitened when we can afford it.

Like a new couch it isn't high on my priority list at the moment!

Thank you for the compliment. I really do try to look at what bad things in life can teach us - about ourselves, and the world. Sometmes I drive myself a little crazy, I am afraid.

It also means, when I catch myself repeating mistakes my parents made, that I berate myself that much more for fallng into some vicious cycle.

[baxaphobia]

This is absolutely fabulous! I didn't have braces til I was 31, but had a pallate expander...not the Frankel but a different instrument of torture fit for Guantanamo Bay. But now I have a nice smile. But it was my decision! haha

[monkeysugarmama]

I have heard bad things about the palate expander - the one that has a crank you turn to widen it? OUCH!

I really do have a great smile, it is one compliment I get consistently, so I don't feel too immodest saying that. I should post a picture of me smiling with teeth showing. They are still in the right place, lol!

[baxaphobia]

haha. Yes. A nice smile is a good thing. I could buy a house with the money spent on my teeth!

[monkeysugarmama]

I think if I'd been older, no one would have said a word about the braces. But in elementary school no one had seen them on anybody but an older sibling, so I was a weirdo.

But, 5 years of braces for you?? My friend Emilie had hers for four years and I thought that was bad!