Aren't Digital Cameras Great??? Or Mango's Journey to Braces, Part 1

Over the past few months, when Lily has had issues with her ear post area, we've started taking a digital photograph of it, so that she can easily see exactly what we are talking about. It's important that she learn what the area looks like when it is healthy and when it's not healthy, as someday she will be out on her own and need to make a decision for herself on when to see the doctor.
Today, Mango had some orthodontic spacers put in around a couple of molars, so that they will have room to place some metal bands there in a couple of weeks for her "sutural expander". She was curious about what these blue bands looked like in her mouth, so I offered to take a picture. In typical Mango fashion, she thought it was hysterically funny to do this, and happily gave me permission to post the picture of her mouth on my blog!
You can see a couple of her permanent teeth are coming in well behind her baby teeth. This has happened with every single permanent tooth she has gotten to this point. Her mouth, quite simply, is much too small for her permanent teeth (and those of you who know just how much she can talk can quit laughing about her having a small mouth now!) They will place the expander in about two weeks, and I will have to use a small tool to "expand" her palate every morning for about 6-8 weeks. (This supposedly doesn't hurt. But it doesn't exactly sound very pain free, does it?) Once her mouth has expanded to a more proper size, she will have braces put on the top teeth for a few months to try to pull everything into a better alignment, and to hopefully allow the other permanent teeth to come in in their proper places.
She is a trooper though and did great at the orthodontist today (and they did great with her, which is even more important!).
Maybe we'll have to make this process a blog series!!!!