Lily got braces on Monday, February 16th. She had no school for President’s Day but was dreading the 9:10 appointment at the orthodontist office.  Lily did a great job when they put on the braces, and we went ice skating at shopping at Justice (two of her favorite things) after she had the braces put on.  Then she went to play with Annika.  She called to come home early because she started to feel pain.  The orthodontist warned that she would be in pain for at least 3 days.

Lily broke our hearts as she cried throughout the evening and was unable to tolerate chewing any food.  Nathan and I decided to arrange our schedules this week to take the kids and pick them up from school.  We surprised her with this news Tuesday morning, and her mood has improved ever since.  The Registered Dietitian/Mom in me is a concerned with Lily not being able to chew.  Lily is 60 pounds at age 10 (and a half!), so she has no reserve on her body.  So I am getting her lots of milkshakes.  She loves oatmeal with scrambled eggs in the morning, and I even got her to drink some butter pecan Ensure nutritional supplements.  My coworker and friend Deb made Lily a special strawberry cake.  Lily was so excited when I came home from work with a cake made just for her…and she was able to eat it (minus the big strawberries).

This morning I noticed this picture on our bathroom chalkboard:

So maybe braces won’t be so bad after all…