Lindsey's Smile

Take a good look at this photo.

How many teeth has Lindsey lost on the top?

If you guessed anything more than zero, you would be wrong.

I am continually amazed at the human body. Lindsey has a front big tooth that is amazingly loose -- it should honestly probably be out by now, but she takes her time in wiggling the thing and we don't press her, so there it is still.

In the meantime, the secondary tooth has moved so far over that there is a gap between those two teeth now that is the size of a tooth. Clearly whatever front tooth she has in the works is a doozy, and will be taking up a lot of space in her mouth.

I think it's so amazing that her baby teeth are moving on their own, making room for the permanent ones.

I've heard lots of stories of friends and co-workers who put their kids into braces at ages 7 and 8, knowing that in 5 years they'll probably be putting them back in braces again. If you just look at the size of your kids' head when they start losing their baby teeth and growing their adult teeth, they still have so much growing to do, there will be plenty of room for those adult teeth once their mouth is full grown. And so far I'm finding that if you just leave the body alone, the teeth will find their own places in their mouth.

I had braces as a child; my husband didn't. I don't believe any of his siblings did. You can't tell. Truly, you can't. His families teeth are as straight as my sister's and mine, both of whom went through years of orthodontia. (Full disclosure: I know that one of his sisters got braces as an adult because their lack of straightness bothered her, but they weren't crooked enough for others to think "gee, look at the crooked teeth on that woman.")

I am in no hurry to straighten my kids' teeth. I think some parents hurry it up, thinking that it's a miserable thing to be in braces as a teenager, so they want to get them over with and done before the teenage years. I know that during my own development my parents put me in braces at the same time as my sister because it was convenient to have to trek the two of us back and forth to the orthodontist at the same time. I was in 4th grade. And I ended up having to have braces again as an adult because my teeth had moved so much in the interim.

So my kids might hate me at the time, but if they need braces they'll be getting them their junior/senior year of high school. Sorry kids. The good news is that photographers nowadays use Photoshop to erase them if you're wearing them when you have your senior picture taken.