Braces!

Both Karen and I were blessed with blissfully straight teeth. Mine have a small space on my lower rack and a slight overlap on the top shelf, while Karen's are all perfection. Neither one of us had to have braces.

So how is it that all three of our children have had to have those wretched instruments of torture installed in their mouths?

Anya's bout with canker sore-inducing metal has already come and gone and she has now joined her parents on the "Ready for the Orbit gum ad" list. Her sisters are just beginning the many months of subjecting their teeth to the modern equivalent of the rack.

Here are their jack-o-lantern smiles in need of straightening.And the wide open view.They've both got one of those pointy corner guys that refuses to drop, so it will require varying degrees of mouthular manipulation (and perhaps surgery for Em -- ouch!) to pull those into place.

We've made the initial visit to OrthodonticLand (which let me tell you, is not nearly as fun as DisneyLand but a WHOLE lot more expensive) and have come out with part one of the metallic installations, more specifically, the upper deck.In another month or two, they'll add the basement torture chamber.

But for now, we begin the many caramel-free, starburst-free, any-gooey-yummy-candy-free months until the braces have done their work and those teeth line up like the good little soldiers they should be.