It's official--Ruby is not going to follow conventions, at least not yet. She happily wears boy clothes and couldn't care less if she gets confused for a boy. "I want to be a boy when I grow up," she's told us already repeatedly. We just say "you can be whatever you want to be," as she moves on to her next whim of the moment.

But this new development, I don't like so much. I was hoping we could avoid dealing with dentists later, much later. Wait until they are reasonable, at age 3 and take them, our pediatrician said. Our dentist concurred. We'll happily follow those rules, that general convention, while dealing with the usual toddler fights to brush her teeth at least once a day.

But, she has cavities. And, apparently, really weird ones. Sometimes toddlers get cavities, and if they do, they are almost always in the bigger teeth, at the back. Nope, not this babe. She has them in her bottom teeth. And it could be that for some bizarre reason she has cavity-prone teeth, so that means more cavities and more dentist visits. Great.

So now we're weighing the options. She has to get them filled, that's a fact. But do we get a local anesthesia or laughing gas or Valium through her nose or nothing? Do we have her restrained in some foam board device or hold her? What is the best way to get her and us through the procedure and how will she chalk up this one dentist experience against all the others she is likely going to need to monitor her cavities and probable lack of adult teeth (I didn't follow the teething trend either and am missing countless adult teeth and molars)?

In the meantime Ruby seemed pretty unfazed by the two visits she's had so far. She plays with the water cup, she chats about her trips to the beach with her Dad, and she dutifully, when we're all ready, on my lap, opens up her mouth for inspection. Today she got a whistle, last time it was pink toothbrush. So far, so good.