My First Visit to a Dentist

Knock, knock!

Who's there?

Daniel.

Daniel who?

Daniel who is visiting a dentist for the first time!

Yup, that's right. I am at a dentist's office. Mama was waiting for my turn to see a dentist. It was a very short wait of a few minutes before the the dentist, Dr Rashid, was ready to see me. When it was my turn, I was so engrossed with playing in this toy house that Mama had to lug me into his office. I did not throw a tantrum though but certainly restless.

Dr Rashid took out his iPad to show me some pictures of early childhood cavities. One of the first thing I said when I saw his iPad was, "Check email first." Mama thought it was kind of amusing for me to say that. Actually, I had never seen my parents check email on the iPad before. So Mama had no idea how I actually thought of using the iPad to check email.

Then, Dr Rashid showed me how to use a dentist's handheld mirror to count the number of teeth on a denture.

I counted together with him. There were 20 teeth. Then, he actually passed me the mirror and asked me to count the teeth again. Here I am, counting the teeth.

After I had finished counting, Dr Rashid said he was going to count my teeth. I stood next to Mama and opened my mouth for Dr Rashid to count my teeth. I had 20 teeth too! :D

Dr Rashid also let me cushion my head on Mama's shoulder before giving me a quick oral examination. He said my teeth are in good condition and there is no cavities. He also noted my chipped tooth which he said is a fracture and advised Mama to check me for gum boils which is a sign of infection which would then warrant a tooth extraction.

He advised Mama to let me kick the habit of using my tutu as his general advice is to let young children stop the use of pacifiers before 3 years old. He noted that my upper gum is protuding much but assured Mama there is hope as I am still young and the problem may resolve itself as I grow. This is great news to Mama as my parents thought I may have to wear braces in my teenage days to correct my protuding jaws caused by using the pacifier. Thanks be to God and may it be as he said.

At the end of the visit, he also gave me a toothbrush and let me choose a toy from a toy box and guess what did I choose? A red whistle! Dr Rashid thought Mama may not be too pleased to let me have it but Mama is ok with it.

After we left Dr Rashid's office, we went to Redhill MRT station. By then, I was pretty hungry and so Mama bought me a cheese pancake from Mr Bean. This was my lunch and we actually sat at the staircase in the MRT station to eat my lunch before we headed home.

Mama regretted not asking Dr Rashid to tell me directly that I should not be using my tutu anymore. To Mama's surprise, when she told me dentist said I cannot use a pacifier, I actually took it to heart and I went to nap without one. See, this pose kind of expresses Mama's joy that I went to nap without a tutu. Yeah! :D

Walked to School

Usually, Mama carries me to school in the mornings as we are always rushing to reach school on time for Teacher Sharon to check me. This morning, as we were approaching the traffic junction near my place, I wanted to come down. Mama soon found out the reason.

I saw Shi En, my classmate. Initially, Mama did not know she was from my class. It was only when we reached the door of the classroom that Mama found out we were classmates.

Anyway, back to my walk. After Mama let me down, I quickly went to Shi En and held her hand. She did not stop me and so we held hands and walked to school with Shi En's older sister. See, we were still walking as we approached school. ;)

So this was what motivated me the walk all the way to school on my own without Mama carrying me. Papa said maybe we should make it a point to have Shi En walk me to school every morning. Haha.. ;)

Small Puzzles

It may not be right to say I am not a hands-on person. See the 20 little sets of puzzles above? I did about 19 sets of them all on my own. Mama only helped me separate the pieces into 20 sets and I was the one who put the pieces in each set in the correct order.

Here's a closer look at one of the sets.

I did them all in 1 sitting when I had to stay at home because I had running nose and cough. Mama is really proud of my achievement. Alas, I had no more patience to do all the 20 sets again. Sigh.

Art Person?

Last month, we went to West Coast Plaza for lunch after church and passed by this stall that allows young children to do art work. After watching a girl do her colouring (Mama found out the girl was just below 3 years old), I told Mama I wanted to do one as well.

Papa paid $5 and Mama chose a design for me. She thought she had chosen a Hello Kitty design with bigger areas for me to fill in the paint, thinking it might be easier for me. See, I am doing my artwork with supervision from Papa. Looks promising, yup?

But the finished piece of work looks like this!!

Here's a closer look. Mama thinks it's Hello Kitty that looks like it was born with a birth mark. ;p

Mama thinks I am really not an art person. If she has the money and needs to decide between a speech and drama class or an art class, she will likely send me to the former as it's probably a waste of money to send me for art classes.

It was only this month that Mama realised that this might not had been Hello Kitty but Dear Daniel, Hello Kitty's male counterpart as the cat wears a pair of pants. ;p

By the way, this piece of art work is now on the wall in the bathroom that is in my parents' bedroom. It turned out that it could actually be used to decorate wall tiles. Nice! :)