first trip to the dentist

yesterday jake had his very first dentist appointment. i had asked a lot of people for suggestions on what dentist to take him to. in the end, i decided to go with greenville pediatric dentistry. that's where i went when i was a child, and i have such fond memories of going there. dr. bray was my dentist, but he's retired and sold the practice to his daughter, dr. april. she was wonderful. she also has a son who's 13 months old. so she just sat and chatted with me about random things. i thought that was very nice and that shows that she's not just there for the business. she truly cares about her patients and their families. we talked about adding brushing jake's teeth to his bedtime routine and possibly trying to take the paci away around 18 months - 2 years old. she said just from talking to other moms that taking it away during that time frame seemed to be the easiest time for all involved. so onto the actual check up. children get 20 baby teeth. jake already has 16 of those. so all we have to wait on are his 2nd molars (which shouldn't come until he's 2). his teeth and the spacings between looked great. the only little concern she had was that the little piece of skin that is above his top teeth that connects to the top of his lip was rather low. therefore, it's causing a gap between his two top teeth. so she said it might go away on its own or either when he's older and his permanent teeth come in he'll have to get it clipped and have braces. she also said that if he was to fall and hit his mouth, that little piece of skin may tear and she said there would be a lot of blood (but that would be a blessing in disguise). but other than that, it was a great first check-up. jake doesn't necessarily like for people to look in his mouth, but he did a lot better than i expected. here are some more pictures from his first visit.