Mack is back

We woke up at 6 am on Friday to get the kids ready to go. Mike's mom met us at the surgery center to take Mick and Mase for the day so we could give Mack our full attention - Thank you Donna!
We checked him in at 7:45 (little late, but that's what 30 miles of snow and ice will get ya)and they got him settled on a bed with the aid of a box full of stickers. He was told he could have as many as he wanted, so he stopped choosing carefully and simply covered his shirt and pants liberally. He ended up looked like a TGI Friday's employee.
He was expertly handled, distracted with stickers to get him in the room and out of his shirt and into a snap on surgery shirt. He was given a blown- up glove and a felt tip pen in return for letting them get the finger tip pulse monitor and blood pressure cuff on him. While he was drawing, they gave him a cup of "cocktail" and his letters got bigger and sloppier til pretty soon he was so relaxed he was falling off the bed. Then was when the nurse picked him up and let him give Daddy and Mommy hugs goodbye. Mike told him to tell Dr. Rex (dentist, not in the room) hi for us. So Mack waved over the nurses shoulder and yelled " Hi Dr. REX!"
The wait was difficult to say the least. I tried getting online but found myself uninterested. I tried crochet, but I do it so often I can literally stop looking at it and that gave my brain free time to imagine exactly what was going on. I tried to make conversation, but it came in fits and starts and neither of us felt like keeping it up. Three cups of coffee and lots of fidgeting and staring into space later, the dentist came out and explained that things hadn't been exactly as planned. It was supposed to be 12 fillings, 8 crowns, 4 extractions and 3 root canals. The 4 upper middle teeth had stronger roots than expected and needed stitches to keep the blood from choking him while under the influence of the drugs, the fillings didn't happen because the decay was around the gumline and over the SURFACE of the teeth - which made it too weak to hold a filling, but also preserved the nerves and prevented the need for root canals after all. Two more weeks and the score might have been very different.
Instead, every single tooth in his head has a crown. The only tooth colored crowns that fit his baby teeth were the canines, so he has 4 big, sharp, white eye teeth and bright silver everywhere else.
He has developed an adorable lisp as a result. I giggled when his stickers were peeling from his clothing because he asked me " Mommy can you uthe thticky tape to tape my thtickers on my thirt pleathe?" and " can you thlithe me a pieth of theethe, pleathe?"
I didn't cry. Not once. I wanted to and I nearly did, but I managed to keep it together somehow. I'm glad that his teeth won't hurt him anymore, I'm glad they won't break and crumble.

But my heart breaks every time he smiles.