Hannah's Braces

Wednesday was Hannah's big day at the orthodontist. Russ has been pushing this through because he says he wants her to be able to have them off by the time she is 16. This is truly a puzzlement to me because I can't figure out how the age of 16 is related to the age of 35 when he says the girls can get married. Hmmmm....

We took a picture before we left.....

She was very calm and seemed happy to be going. Breakfast included a big yellow delicious apple, since it would be the last one she could eat for a while, at least the traditional way.

We usually visit the orthodontist in Gunnison, which is 30 miles south of Levan. He's a guest in another dentist's practice there. So when he is putting the braces on and taking molds and such, we go to Richfield, which is 60 miles south of Levan. There's a D.I. there, so I don't mind! I decided to take Molly and Katie with me for a much-needed day out.

There was quite a wait once we got there, and even after Hannah got in the chair, she waited for a long time. The first thing they did was take out the spacers between her molars that were installed three weeks ago. By that time, I figured she was in good hands, so I took the girls and headed to D.I. There wasn't much there this time. I guess I didn't have high expectations because it is so small, but I was hoping for maybe one good book. No luck. I called Russ from D.I. to tell him that the insurance was going to pay more than we thought on the braces (yay!), and he got me searching for scout uniforms. He buys them whenever he can to outfit our scout troop. He takes the leftovers to a lady named Wanda that lives in Utah County, and she advertises and outfits scout troops all over the country a lot more affordably than it would cost them to buy the uniforms new. The prices for new uniforms are outrageous! Anyway, I found three pairs of pants and three shirts that were in pretty good condition. That's all I got to buy at D.I. that day. What a bummer for me, but Russ was happy!

Katie and Molly brought their own money with them. It makes me a little more lenient on what I'll let them attach themselves to, but I still cringe when I look at what they find and imagine it messing up their room. Molly liked a big straw hat, a blue rubber ducky, a little white basket, and a small stuffed tiger. I managed to talk her out of all of the above, and she ended up leaving with two packages of white 4 X 6 index cards for 50 cents each. I thought at least she would use those.

Katie found a baseball style hat and an oriental doll that was meant for display, not for play. They wanted $3.00 for the doll, and I just couldn't go for that because I knew she would want to play with it and it would be reduced to junk in a matter of hours. I found some paper that would fit in a small binder she has, and I convinced her that it would be useful. Then while I was looking for scout uniforms, the girls were trying on shoes. Katie came out with the funniest pumps with big polka dot bows on them. At a ladies size 6, they were just a little too big. She looked up at me with a pleading face.....I told her if she wanted to pay $2.00 for them, I guessed that was okay. It was good for entertainment to watch her walk around in them! When we got back to the orthodontist, Dr. Oldroyd was just cementing on the last bracket. She only got the top done, and the bottom will go on in 6 to 8 months when her bite is corrected a little bit. (Hannah was wearing her Mp3 player because the music they were playing was hard rock and hard to tolerate.) I took some very attractive pictures.......

While they were waiting for the glue to set a little, Dr. Oldroyd gave Hannah instructions about what foods to avoid and how to care for her braces for the first 24 hours.

Then they let her up to rinse and get a look in the mirror.

They still had to put the wire in and take an x-ray, so the girls and I went to Family Dollar, which was two doors down from the orthodontist. The girls went in set on purchasing something--anything! Once again, I tried to be the voice of reason. While I was browsing the clearance racks, Katie came up to me, breathless, and excitedly said, "There are kids' sunglasses, forty percent off!!!" Meanwhile, Molly had found a bag of bite-size Nutter Butter cookies on clearance and was quite proud of herself. Each of the girls picked out a pair of glasses. Katie's had a stretchy band instead of the things that go over the ears...I am quite sure they were intended for a very young child. We had a little trouble at the checkout because the clearance prices didn't ring up properly, and while it was being sorted out, Hannah showed up. She was all smiles, and asked me to buy her some milk to get the yucky taste out of her mouth.

On the way home, we saw a house that Hannah said she really liked, only she said it could use a porch. I think a big part of the appeal was also the remote unpopulous setting.

This says a lot about her personality---Little House books, can't get enough of family history, no make-up, loves animals, dislikes the city, loves long uncut hair, has written 9 pioneer style fiction books, and one of her favorite websites is a Victorian name collection site.

I took some shots of Katie and Molly when we got home with their new "stuff." Notice Katie's shoes! And here is the "after" picture of Hannah's newly altered smile!