I still wear my retainer at night

I had braces for three and a half years.

Three and a half torturous, awkward, often painful, but very necessary years.  It began as a junior in high school and finally ended, at my insistence, the summer before my sophomore year at BYU.  There was major surgery involved, more orthodontic visits than I can count, weird torture appliances spreading open the roof of my mouth, rubber bands going all different directions, a lot of excess saliva, countless containers of yogurt and enough mashed potatoes to keep the Idaho economy running at full tilt. 

Let me tell you this, wearing braces through high school is normal, most kids do it at one point or another. Wearing braces through college is a whole different story. Being a girl and wearing braces through college is even worse.  It's hard enough being a girl as it is, add braces into the mix and life gets a whole lot more awkward. 

Then at last they were off, and wouldn't you know, I came out of it with a smile worthy of a Crest commercial (or so I've been told...okay one person said as much to me a really long time ago, but I will hang on to that until I DIE).  Besides all that, the real kicker is this: awkwardness and all my braces taught me a thing or two.  One, beauty is pain, and two, even when the awful of adolescence follows you into the cusp of adulthood, it doesn't truly last forever.

So yes, I still wear my retainer at night.  It's huge (I have a big mouth), watermelon-esque, and totally sexy, or not.  Whenever I pop it into place I'm reminded of those 3 seemingly never ending years and I am unabashedly grateful that they are over and long gone, at least for me personally anyway.  

I'm bracing myself (pun absolutely intended) to go through it all over again with my kids, because let's be honest, it's kind of inevitable.  And when that day comes, I'll be in complete agreement with them that yeah, it does suck, but chin up kiddos, I'll do my best to make sure you're not still wearing them in college!

If that's not motherly love than I don't know what is.   

This is an original Rocky Mountain Moms Blog post.  Sometimes Kalli wears her retainer while working on the computer too, maybe she's even wearing it right now.  You can find more Kalli on her blog My Life as a Kalli or follower her on Twitter, @mamakalli, except she sort of sucks at twitter so don't get too excited about that.