Well today, Good Enough Mother got to find out exactly what  two-thousand dollars and 10 monthly payments of 250 bucks will get her.  A car with heated leather seats?  A new kitchen in which to whip up the tastiest morsels for her loved ones? Botox? Nope… today Cole got braces!

That is right, ladies and gentlemen, in one small mouth lies enough metal to set off every detector in the Tri State area. And you know what that means? I now have another mouth to feed. LITERALLY. Because all you mommies of kids with braces know the list of what they cannot eat is long and wide. Go ahead and scratch off gummy worms, gummy bears, Sour Patch Kids (Cole’s favorite) Swedish Fish, caramels, Mike-n-Ike’s Good-n-Plenty, Payday, Baby Ruth, Snicker’s, Milky Way and any other thing that is even remotely associated with a care free childhood.

The rest of the instructions went something like this: “There will be no biting directly from the apple, broccoli will be eaten in small chunks and then you must use this thing that looks like a teeny, tiny toilet brush to clean in between the brackets. You will brush after each meal and place a rubber band connecting one errant tooth to another. If all goes well, the kid can break out of the braces in about a year.”

But – and this is the big one….

Frankly it’s not the sticky candy I worry about. It’s the fact that this Harry Houdini of a boy I am raising has already managed to escape from two lip bumpers and several sets of spacers. The spacers, for those of you who remain blissfully unaware, are these little hard plastic things that they place between the teeth, to make, you guessed it, space. This will help in the next phase, which is when they put the brackets on the teeth. Cole got his spacers at 9:43 yesterday. One was out at 10:17.  The other came out last night. Of course, Dr. Schaeffer and I found out they were missing at the same time when Cole opened his mouth for part two of the treatment.  Yet another reason I really should be Mother of the Year.

The spacers are one thing. Escaping from a lip bumper requires a skill and precision that far exceeds your average grade-schooler. The lip bumper is a device that is CEMENT GLUED to the back teeth and with a wire, keeps the space a baby tooth has vacated open until the big tooth decides to make its appearance. Did I mention it is CEMENT GLUED in place? And yet, somehow, my boy, managed to wriggle out of not one but two of them, only discovered by me once I came home from a business trip (because that’s when all hell breaks lose, when you’re on a business trip). How did he do it, you might be asking yourself?

Nail clippers.

Yep, brute strength, sheer determination and something you can buy for less than 5 bucks at Rite Aide. He makes me so proud.

I must say, Cole was a champ during the installation and he got to pick out the colors for his brackets. To me, he looks older and there are no more vestiges of his baby self. He is a full-fledged adolescent now and a cute one at that.

Gosh I hope these braces make it through the night. Okay moms, your turn, what’s the worst dental horror story you have…

Plus if you have any tips for Good Enough Mother and her Houdini of a son, please, pass ‘em along!