Dental Conversation between me and my five year old son...

Before I decided to go to college to become a counselor, I went to the vocational school for my junior year in high school and completed the dental assistant training one semester and medical assistant training the second. I probably would have gone on to be a RN had it not been for my spinal surgery (right before my junior year of HS) that left me very weak physically for the next year. I was unsure that I could keep up with the physical demands of the program for my senior year, so I went back to my high school and finished up with college prep studies.

Since I spent so much time learning about teeth in high school, I tend to call teeth by their proper names even now. This morning my five year old son lost his third tooth and I told a friend about it. She asked which tooth he lost and I said, "his right mandibular lateral incisor." If she wouldn't have been on the phone with me I probably would have been smacked.

After that I thought I need to educate my son, so I called him over and touched his bottom jaw and said, "This is your mandible." and then touched his top jaw and said "This is your maxillary jaw." Then I told him that the hole in his mouth once held his right mandibular lateral incisor. He looked at me with a straight, face and said, "Oh, I thought they were called teeth."