A Georgia Girl in Germany

Zachary got his braces off Monday morning. No, his teeth didn’t have a miraculous movement and all glide into place in five months’ time. Instead, he has a new orthodontist who opted for “Plan B” in Zachary’s treatment. We knew “Plan A” may not work since it involved significant shifting of teeth, angling forward of his overbite, and filing off the sides of his teeth in an attempt to make room for all his permanent teeth.

Plan B entails keeping the bands on his back teeth, connected to a wire to keep them from drifting forward into the space needed for his permanent teeth to grow into. The other part of the plan, which Zachary is less than thrilled about, involves serial extractions. Yup, that’s orthodontist-speak for pulling several teeth…six to be exact. He’ll have four baby teeth as well as two permanent teeth (still in the gum) pulled next month. And, that’s just on his upper jaw...which is almost exactly what I went through before I had braces -- he definitely inherited my mouth in that regard!

For right now, his bottom teeth don’t look as crowded, so the orthodontist is going to leave them be with just a wire running behind his teeth to maintain the space for his permanent teeth and hopefully prevent any overcrowding that may occur otherwise.

I’ve been telling him that these extractions won’t be as bad as when he had an impacted tooth that split in half when they pulled it earlier this year, but he’s not quite sure he believes me. Hopefully these extractions go much more smoothly than that one!

On another Zachary-related adventure, he went on a canoe trip on the Nekar River with his Boy Scout troop this past weekend. They left Friday afternoon, camped out that night, then hit the river Saturday morning. More than eight hours later and 17 miles downstream, they came off the river and set up camp again for the night. Zachary was so tired both nights that he didn’t even pull his sleeping bag out of his backpack! He even went to sleep by 8:30 Saturday night, using his backpack as a pillow and covered up with a jacket (according to a fellow scout). He claimed his arms were tired from all the paddling he did, but proudly showed off his biceps when he returned home on Sunday. Once again, he had disposable cameras with him, but this time they stayed safely dry inside his backpack the entire trip. Maybe one of these days he'll actually end up using the cameras.

Labels: Zachary