Mr. 13 is remarkably willing to go to appointments, provided we abide by one simple rule: the appointment must be scheduled during the school day. He’ll do almost anything to miss school. Unfortunately for him, his parents work, and he has a *lot* of upcoming appointments, so when the dentist observed that one of his canine teeth still has not fallen out and that X-rays showed a potentially impacted tooth, I scheduled the orthodontist for this morning, the last day of March Break. He was not impressed.

Nevertheless, he got up with only a bit of groaning and walked with me to the orthodontist. After we filled in all the paperwork, we were put into a consulting room where his x-rays were up. Right away, I could see the problem: one tooth looked stuck. But Mr. 13 is a curious sort, and he was looking at far more than one tooth. After a minute he said, “I think these are old.” The technician pointed out that they were dated Tuesday; they were recent. Mr. 13 nodded politely, and she went to get the orthodontist.

As soon as she was gone, he said, “Mom, those are definitely old.” He showed me the teeth he’d lost that were still present on the x-ray along with the teeth that hadn’t fully grown in but were, quite obviously, in his mouth. When the orthodontist and tech returned, I pointed out the problems. “Let me take a look,” said the orthodontist, but all he had to do was glance at Mr. 13’s mouth to know that we were right.

“Hmph. We need a new x-ray.”

“He just had one on Tuesday,” I said.

As it turned out, he had not had an x-ray on Tuesday. I was confused. Why were we here? No one was sure. The technician took Mr. 13 for the x-ray, then everyone reassembled in the tiny room. The new x-ray was displayed and the “impacted” tooth was, in fact, not impacted at all.

“Maybe he could just, you know, try to wiggle it for a little while?” I asked. I know my child; he is not a tooth-wiggler. He would prefer to keep everything as it is, thank you very much.

But no. We were already at the orthodontist’s, and he suggested sending Mr. 13 to an oral surgeon. Mr. 13 asked if the appointment would be during the school day. I rolled my eyes. Next, the orthodontist explained that he would need braces on the upper teeth to “close the gaps” and on the bottom to “correct the overbite”. All of this, of course, after this tooth came out and the new one grew in. 

The orthodontist left, and the technician continued the explanation: braces will take two years, followed by a retainer for two years, then a small wire behind the teeth to hold them in place, and a retainer for the rest of his life. She sent us to billing for the estimate. 

Billing booked us for an appointment in December (during the school day) to check on the position of the erstwhile tooth, then showed us the price of braces and all the ways we could pay for them. I tried not to let my jaw drop too far open. When she was finished, we paid for our visit, took the estimate and headed home.

As we walked down the front steps, Mr. 13 said, “Um, Mom. I don’t think my teeth are too far apart. And no dentist has ever mentioned that I have an overbite before. Do you think I need braces?”

“Have you ever heard the saying ‘if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’?”

He had not. I explained. He nodded sagely, “Yeah, this guy definitely only has a hammer.” We continued walking until we arrived at the diner we love, my bribe to get him to the orthodontist this morning. As we sat down, he confirmed, “So, I’m probably not getting braces, right?”

Nope, kiddo, probably not. Hammer/ nail.