Parenting

“Kid-Friendly” Can Be Overrated

Eleanor had her first visit to the dentist yesterday.

I considered bringing her to a pediatric dentist. You know, the kind that not only specializes in taking care of kids’ teeth, but that also excel in entertaining/distracting them in the process. When I called to make the appointment, I was told that it would be $350 for the visit, which included a cleaning and a set of x-rays. For a toddler? Is that standard? It didn’t sit well with us, Brandon especially, so I cancelled the visit and booked with our regular dentist instead.

I don’t know why I thought we had to take her to a little kid dentist just because she’s a little kid. She was treated respectfully and appropriately by the regular dentist, and she was a star patient. They told me in advance that they wouldn’t push for a cleaning on her first visit, but she was so cooperative that the hygienist went ahead. When the dentist came by to check on her, he asked her age, starting with “Three? Four?”, and seemed genuinely surprised to learn that she was only two. Well, she is almost three.

The visit cost just over $100 (much better than the $350 we were quoted elsewhere). Besides the money we saved though, I’m glad for the experience. The whole thing reminds me of her first haircut.


It was last year, about a month before her second birthday. After much deliberation, and much overthinking, I set up an appointment for her with a kids’ salon. There were TV screens with cartoons or video games in front of every station (it felt a little WALL-E), chairs in the shape of cars and spaceships, and a giant wall of merchandise for sale. All for a 5-minute haircut that she would have sat still for anyway.

I do it myself now. Then sometimes she gets a second haircut at a walk-in salon to fix the one I gave her, lucky girl! (Honestly, that only happened once; I shouldn’t have tried to cut layers.)


Anyway, after her visit to the dentist, she and I spent the day wandering around town. We went to the Magic Tree bookstore (I’m not against all things for children), tried on glasses, had lunch at Jerusalem Café, stopped in a new bakery, and did a little window shopping. Eleanor thinks that all of Penzeys smells like soup. “MMmmmmmmm!”

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