Daddy took me to the dentist 🦷 today. He has taken me here many times before.

He lifts me up onto the chair and I lay back before the inside of me is searched.

Sometimes it’s easy, pain free and quick with a check up and clean.

Sometimes it’s painful with decay that needs drilled out, holes that need to be filled, or teeth that need to be taken out altogether. But I know this is for my benefit despite my fear.

I’m afraid of the dentist, I’m nervous in the chair as I await the news of my fate.

When he said we would go to the dentist, I didn’t know what kind of a day I would have. But I know he is in the room with me. Watching me.

I never knew what really happens when a parent takes their child to the dentist. I never realised he got up on the chair himself. I didn’t know that when I lay on that chair, I lay on him, and his arms wrapped around me, I never realised that when I went through the drilling his arms where around me. I never realised that when he whispered encouraging love to me that it was right in my ear and not just in the room.

“Your doing so good, your so brave”.

I know that I have a mouth full of teeth that will one day need treatment. I know that as I stand here today I know not the tooth or the trouble they might have. But I know he will hold me through each appointment.

And there will be a sedation. I remember the fear, the fading sight, the loss of sound. And then nothing.

But I remember the groggy awakening, the feeling that something was different.

When the sedation comes, fear has no root. When the sedation comes I know that I lay still in your arms. When my eyes open, it will be your face I see.

One day I will look back on this life as the prelude, the childhood, the before part of my 7 year olds sedation.

What will we do after the dentist on that day dad? You promised a mighty feast. You better have ice cream 🍦