photo challenge: Smile

I have always been someone with a "thing for teeth" by which I mean, teeth are the 1st thing I notice about someone, Especially celebrities and TV personalities. I must admit that at times I can be harsh, I often think if a celebrity has money than why in the world would they not fix their teeth!?
Maybe I'm so sensitive about teeth because I spent a large majority of my life having mine worked on!
I got braces right before I turned 6 and didn't get them off until I was in 7th grade!! YUP my mouth was that messed up!

Here is a picture of me before braces, awh aren't I cute? 

I know you all are probably like "what? her smile looks fine" well those there are my baby teeth and as soon as those bad boys fell out and my adult teeth came in my mouth was a HOT MESS because there was NO ROOM for them, everything was so crowded, I had teeth coming in under my tongue! 

So began my many years of dental work! 

not only did I have braces I also had orthodontic headgear!! ahhh, thankfully I didn't have to wear my headgear for long and never in public, just at home and I was supposed to sleep in it too. Oh man was it uncomfortable. Braces had their upside too, for those of you who also had braces you remember how much fun it was to get different colored bands, you could even mix & match colors and have themed bands for different holidays, you know red & green, or orange & black...the worst choice of color for your bands was white, it just looked like you had something stuck in your teeth,yuck!

           

Thankfully all those years of being a "brace face" or "metal mouth" paid off.

I am very thankful that my family was able to afford to keep my mouth in braces! If I could change anything about my smile I would love to have my teeth professionally whitened! Now to the next generation...my boys, I'm pretty sure there is no hope of them not having braces! In fact we recently took Beckham to his 1st dental exam and I decided to ask the dentist his opinion and before I could even get the question out He assumed I was asking about braces and responded with "absolutely without a doubt he will need braces" What I've been told is that even though it may not be the "prettiest" you want your baby/toddler's smile to have a lot of gaps, because then they will have room for their adult teeth. Unfortunately Beckham has a beautiful gap free smile :(  Better start saving now!! The good news is Orthodontistry has come a L O N G way in the last 24 years

Here is a picture of Beckham at the dentist, he said he needed "Batman" glasses because it was too bright, not sure what made them batman glasses but hey, whatever works!

So there you have it! I hope you've enjoyed my pictures & crazy hairstyles, hey I was a child of the 80s, what do you expect?