2nd Chances

In life, and sometimes in love, people want 2nd chances.
My son is known for asking for 2nd chances. Every time there is is a punishment or a "consequence" to be carried out, there is pleading for 2nd chances.
As much as I want to be merciful, the lessons will not be learned or reinforced if I'm too much of a pushover. This month's article for Weekly Biz is just about that.
Happy reading!

2nd Chances

Recently I got a new cell phone and after it was activated, I noticed that all my old voicemail messages had transferred over. I had saved some of my kids’ messages when they were a lot younger. They still had their baby voices and it’s so cute. One message in particular made me laugh. It was my son when he was around 8 years old. My Dad was watching them after school while I was working. They are supposed to be doing homework and practicing their music. Those are the rules. No TV or video games after school, too.  My Dad told me that both my kids had broken the rules by watching TV so when I got home, as a punishment, I had them write 1000x “I will obey Mommy’s rules and not watch TV during school nights”. 

My 9 year old daughter went to her room and after a short time; handed in her 1000 sentences.  My son took longer so I had him complete it the next day. While I was at work the next day, he came home and left me a voice message. “Mommy, I want you to know that I did not watch TV after school today. Can I have a second chance?  If you let me stop writing, I will obey your rules, clean my room, wash the dishes after dinner and I promise not to watch TV after school on school nights.  I love you, Mommy.”  He sounded so sad.

Sometime in the future, people will have a 2^nd chance with their teeth. Adults have a complete set of teeth by the time they are 12 years old. Instead of living with one set of damaged or repaired adult teeth for the rest of their lives, having to deal with old root canals, bridges, dentures, implants, all of a sudden, a new set would come out and we would have a chance to do better. All the people who did not take care of their 1^st set of adult teeth could now have a 2^nd chance. Brand new white teeth as a 50 year old!

Unfortunately, that is not true. Like my son that left the sad voicemail, there were no 2^nd chances with his punishment that day and there are no 2^nd chances with a new set of adult teeth. My senior patients tell me that if they had known how important teeth are as they got older, they would have taken better care of their teeth while they were younger. Some people wish they have 2^nd chances with their teeth. In the future, they may be able to. Just not right now.

o_O!

We did "speedy" things this weekend. Hubby checked out the race track at Raceway Park, Englishtown, NJ.  He was disappointed. Track too short, too many curves, not enough of a straight-away for his peddle to the metal moments.   Kids went go-karting. They came back all bright-eyed and with renewed teenage confidence.  

"Mommy! In a few years, we don't have to take driver's ed anymore! We know how to drive now. It's so easy!" 

"Sure kids.... sure. That, plus your PS3 experiences in Grand Tourismo 6, right?"

"YES!! Mommy, you're sooooo cool !!!"

"Sure kids... sure. Just like when you thought all of a sudden I could cook really well just because I was good at Cooking Mama on Nintendo DS??" 

o_O !

I was on the sidelines in the "pit" area doing last minute editing for my latest article for Daily Sun while there was racing around via lawn mower engines.

Dear Diary…. o_O!

Dear Diary….  I’ve always told people that dentistry is never boring. There is always something that will shock me even after being a dentist for over 20 years.

A new patient, Mrs H, came in to see me last month. She was close to my Dad’s age and she gave me a polite smile.   As a new patient, everyone fills out a paper with their information on it and a list of questions to be answered. It helps us to get to know our patients better.  One of the questions listed is, “The reason I’m here today is…”  My new patient answered, “I’m not happy with my dentures.” Immediately, I thought about all the problems patients could have with their dentures. Loose dentures, not able to eat properly like their own teeth, not liking the color of the teeth, not looking like themselves in the mirror, etc…

After I sat her in my chair, I asked her how I could help her with her dentures. She said, “When I got my dentures the very first day, I was very happy with them. I was glad I could eat properly again. They fit perfectly fine! Now they look like a mess. I don’t know what I did wrong. I can’t go through life with blue teeth!”  I asked her to tell me what happened step by step.

Mrs. H:  When I got my dentures first put in my mouth, I was overjoyed! I looked so young again smiling in the mirror.  I wanted to take extra good care of my new dentures so I brushed them very well with my toothbrush and toothpaste at night. I must have spent 10 minutes scrubbing and making sure everything was cleaned out.  After a few days, I noticed they had a bad smell so I thought the toothpaste I was using was not strong enough. I mixed in some salt in with my toothpaste.  I had hoped that the salt crystals would scrub everything even better and get rid of the smell but it didn’t.  I bought a harder toothbrush and scrubbed even longer at night.  I was surprised when I started seeing the denture collecting stains! Was I not doing enough? How does a regular person keep their dentures so clean and fresh? I decided to let them sit in a cup of bleach. That way, the bleach would kill the smell as well as get rid of the staining.  The next morning, no matter how much I rinsed the dentures, I could not get rid of the bleach smell. I can’t imagine it being too healthy to put that in my mouth so I ran it through the dishwasher as I was doing dishes.  They came out without the bleach smell but I wanted them fresh and minty.  Finally, I decided to soak them in a strong mouthwash. This is where I gave up. Dr Lee, I can try to hide the smell, I can try not to smile too wide and hide the stains but I don’t know what I can do because now my dentures look blue!”

As you can imagine, as I was listening to her story, I must have looked like this:    o_O!

See if you can figure out what Mrs H did wrong and in my next article, we can compare notes!