New Braces!

Ick! Just yesterday I had to go to the orthodontist at like 9:00 AM (I totally wish I could just sleep in for once!) and get them on. I don't know why, but my school has 'half-days' on Thursdays. Do they do that in all elementary schools?! Because it's pretty convenient for me. Especially when I got a huge load of homework in my pack that's due Friday, I have like 3 extra hours to do it! It's awesome! Then I have the whole weekend to just chill. Back to the awful part about yesterday.

My orthodontist actually recommends you to bring your iPod (with LOTS of music on it, of course!) and listen to it while they put on the braces. I grabbed a random pair of head phones that morning and rushed out the door, feeling my smooth teeth with my tongue for a few more seconds. I realized I had grabbed the ones that are like- busted on the left side. So I could only hear on the right side, which didn't really work as planned. Here's what I thought was going to happen:

I jam it up with my iPod while they do their thing with the whole braces thing, and I crank the music up just enough so it blocks out the disgusting sounds of the thingys in my mouth and the weird thing that would bleep every few seconds. Nope! I didn't block out any noise at all. In fact, I could hardly hear the music! I was just lying there, rubbing my thumb around the little circle on the iPod to increase the volume as much as possible, but like I said, these head phones are busted on the left side.

Usually when you think about people having braces, you think, 'Oh, too bad for them. They don't get to have caramel or popcorn or gum or anything like that.' OOoooh no. It's much much more than just popcorn, sticky candies and gum. In fact, we can chew gum! It just needs to be sugar free. No problem with me. It's still gum!! So lets see, I can't have:

- Un-sliced apples
- Hard chips
- Anything that involves caramel (aw...)
- Yes, hard candies
- Beef jerky (BIG aw....)
- Hard pizza crusts
- No chewing ice
- popcorn
- Soda

That's just a few things I can't have. Boy am I going to miss beef jerky... oh well. There's always fruit salad to cheer you up. Especially when it has blueberries in it.

I was really hoping that they wouldn't have to pull any teeth or anything awkward like that. 1. I'm not sure I want to have those people take it out rather than me just picking at it for a week and letting it fall out naturally. 2. I've never had teeth pulled- and I don't think I want to!!

I thought for sure that they would have lime green for a little color thingy that they put on your braces, but apparently they just had this weird forest green thing. So I went with I light blue, close to sky blue.

You know how I play the flute? It's so hard to play now!! Like, I can still get the low notes but it's all weird and airy when I get to the higher notes. Remember: the flute doesn't go in the mouth, it presses against the lower lip, pushing against the braces... which is why I should let the orthodontist know that I play flute, because I don't want to have my bottom braces all screwed.

The assistant who was helping the dude who was putting on my braces kept staring at my shoes. She was all, 'I just love your shoes! Red clogs are awesome!' I wanted to say thank you, but I kinda couldn't because my mouth was all stretched out by these plastic things, so I just gave her a thumbs-up. I thought she was just saying that to make me feel better, (because she's obviously had other kids who hate getting braces on-- like, who doesn't hate getting braces??) but I decided she was actually telling the truth. She was like, telling all the other workers, 'Come here! Look at this little girl's shoes! Aren't they just fantastic?' I'm like lying there, feeling so weird, and the only way I could communicate was thumbs up, thumbs down, uh hu, uh uh. I couldn't even smile with those weird plastic things on me.

They finally finished cutting the wires, attaching the colors, shining that blue light in my mouth, all that jazz. I sat up, and looked in the little hand mirror for a few seconds. Sure, I looked good! They even matched my light blue glasses. But all I know is that I don't think I'll be showing my teeth in my school picture this year. Just a nice, simple, classic smile like my dad always says before he takes a picture of anything. I like to say, 'Smile like you mean it!!'