it seems we once again have an abundance of saliva

No, Stephanie is not puckering up to give you a great big smooch. Monday we had a trip to the dentist to get the next installment in the appliance saga.

Stephanie now sports a stylish occlusal guard in the season's newest color ~ clear. 

Last January when Stephanie got her palate expander (not too bad) and lip bumper (sheer torture) her bite was expanded to make room for her upcoming permanent teeth. All in good time too because there would not have been enough room for those grown up front choppers at all! Well, the palate expander left her with a squarish bite. The occlusal guard will now force her bite into a more rounded and natural shape. So you can imagine that it's not too comfortable right now. For two weeks she has to wear it 24 hours a day, except while eating & brushing. After that I think it's at least 12 hours a day. I think it must be hard to sleep in because when I woke her up this morning it was out of her mouth. Either it fell out or she took it out in the middle of the night.

Before her appointment yesterday, I prepared her for the dentist taking impressions. I was mistaken. Impressions would have given an exact copy of her mouth as it is. What good would that do? Yeah, I didn't think this one all the way through. Instead they took measurements of her mouth (painless) and tried on several guards to see which was the right fit for her (again painless). What she cried about was when they put the weird spreader in her mouth that pull the lips back in a very unnatural fashion so the dentist could take photos of the progress of her mouth.

The upside to all this? Well, a pretty curvature of her bite in the long run, of course.

The downside? Some soreness. Keeping track of an appliance when she's eating. And, oh yeah, once more she has an abundance of spit going on in there.