50% Better

Some of you may remember reading about "Scream-fest 2008" in July of last year. Both kids screamed at the top of their lungs through the entire dentist visit. Their next 6 month cleaning was this morning and I guess you could say we did 50% better than last time. Only Maddie screamed the whole time. This time I resorted to a straight up bribe with a high value prize for Ben. I didn't even bother with Maddie because I couldn't afford the risk of her failing. Then I wouldn't be able to take Ben for his reward if he was tough enough to earn it. As a point of reference, no fast food joint in Northern Virginia seems to have a playland. Isn't that almost morally wrong? All McDonald's and Burger Kings should be obligated to have one. Anyway, there is one in the area and I totally used it in my favor today. It's about a 20 minute drive from the house, but...it's across the street from the pediatric dentist office. I promised Ben if he would not scream and would open his mouth when they asked him too, we would go straight to the playland and get breakfast at McDonald's and he could play for a long time. Ben did NOT enjoy the dentist today, but he followed all my bribe instructions and earned the playland. He did awesome! They even asked him to do x-rays, which were COMPLETELY out of the question last time. Brian and I looked at each other and I felt my stomach drop to the floor. He had done so well, this could put him over the edge and he would loose the playland reward! Before I could protest for him, Ben jumped off the chair and followed the lady down the hall. All right!! Once he couldn't see me anymore, I followed and stood outside the door in case he freaked out when they put the things in his mouth. He gagged a bit, but doesn't everybody? He never cried and when he was done, I snuck back to the room and he came running down the hall to us with a super huge smile. It made me proud that he had done a hard thing alone. After we checked out of the office, Brian helped us load into the car. He headed to work and I took the three kids to McDonalds for breakfast. We dined on pancakes, sausage, biscut, scrambled egg and super big french fires (hash browns). I let them play for an hour and a half. I was bored out of my mind, but hey, it's not all about me and Ben earned it. Now the bad news. Since they had x-rays, they found four cavities between his molars. We better start flossing. In any case, we can either sedate him to fix them or have him strapped in a straight jacket with laughing gas. Both are extremely expensive and it seems like a waste since the teeth will fall out in a few years anyway. I've recently had two friends go through the same thing. I'll have to find out what they recommend, but if anyone else has advise I'm all ears.