Admittedly, the last few months have been so busy that I haven’t had much time to sit, think or write. I may get flack for saying this, but life as a parent leaves you with very little focus time. You have to make a genuine effort to pull yourself away from plenty of fun things to do I mean, who doesn’t want to play with their kid after work? I know, I do!! Read sweet books, go to the park, put together puzzles and enjoy crayon-time- count me in!

There’s a lot of moving pieces around Aashvi Smiles that I wanted to share updates about. I had so much pending on my plate last weekend that I asked my husband to take our toddler out all of Saturday morning and afternoon. I ended up being quite productive, but was also left tired and began missing my family half-way through. Saturday mornings are meant for relaxation, aren’t they? Not always, if you’re a business owner and starting a practice!

Logo

On the recommendation of a few friends, I set up an account on fiverr. The outcome from one designer was so bad, the design sent scared a friend of mine because I sent it to her at night haha. Adding images here for you all to witness.

And, so I contacted another fiverr designer to help make logos. Those were not as bad, but were not fun either. I am still looking for something more meaningful. 

This is a work in progress. I received a third recommendation to use 99designs. I may try that, but may also try just sitting by myself and brainstorming for a few days.

I struggled a lot before coming up with the name of my practice too, yet as soon as we named our daughter or decided what to call her, I knew my practice would be named after her. The right things just need to click. Because they are that simple, that’s what my belief is. 

Signage

We also need to submit designs for the signage that go around our building. The process made me realize that the signage I had originally thought I was accepting in my lease is not the signage I will be receiving. It’s not a huge problem but it did bother me a bit.

This experience, and others have also dawned on me how important it is to be able to own property instead of leasing, especially when it comes to your business. It helps secure longevity. And you get to call all the shots. We will get there someday. 

Construction

Over the last few months, we have had lots of back and forth with the city of San Carlos over our designs. Especially around ADA accessibility in the practice. This is important to them, and myself, as we plan to see so many patients with special health care needs at the office. If you’ve been following my instagram reels and stories, you know my dental practice is a weird L shaped space. So trying to find accessibility for each and every part of the office has been challenging for the architects (however, not impossible). We have had to make some adjustments to the design, but luckily nothing too major. 

I have also selected my cabinetry maker! You guessed it, it was the same person I talked about excitedly in one of my stories a few weeks ago. He has so far, surpassed my expectations and provided me with many revisions based on the changing design requirements. I will introduce him over a reel soon.

I had it in my head that we would start construction in the beginning of October, but am hoping that we at least start by the beginning of December at this point. It all depends on how quickly we can get these permits approved. The plan for the architect is to send out the final design set by the end of this week. Luckily, the city of San Carlos is very quick about responding, it takes less than 2 weeks for them to get back to us. This is a much better system than most other cities that my friends have built practices in! I’ve heard delays as long as 60 days, which would’ve driven me insane by this point.

I received 3 bids so far on my project. This can be a post on its own because it’s been interesting to see how different contractors price various parts of a dental project. The variation between all of them is mighty! We have one bid coming in at around 370k, another at 500k and a third at 600k! None of them even include cabinetry! Cabinetry alone would be around 75k! I am still waiting on one final bid. The final bid is from a contractor who worked with my mentor, Dr. Ng, on Highland Hospital’s latest 18 chair expansion. I’ve asked him to wait until our final design set is ready before he can submit the bid.

Interestingly, he was the only contractor who asked me lots of questions, and had me connect him to the landlord so he could ask them even more! To me, this is a very good sign. I have a strong feeling we would be going with him too.

Especially given the recommendation we received from Dr. Ng and the fact that his team completed her project before time! This is almost never the case but if it is, nothing will make me happier!!!

Patterson

It’s been really great working with Ann Milligan from Patterson in securing dental materials for the office so far. She has been helping me receive samples of products from all the major dental companies in the States. It has been fun trying them all out in practice! I’ve already found my favorite posterior composite, and still need to find a good bonding agent, cement and anterior composite. My plan is to try them all out until I am out for maternity leave. While I’m on maternity leave, I will be meeting Ann in person to go over my full order with them. 

While I could have chosen to work with these suppliers directly, I preferred to go about it this way. It is much more organized to go through a company like Patterson. You can secure samples, assess which specific companies you want to work with and start from there. Once you know which brands you like, you can go direct! 

Maternity leave

Yep, the cat’s out of the bag. I’m due in Jan 2026! Of course baby #2 can decide to come anytime and will probably be here around Christmas or slightly after. We are all excited and nervous! I plan on taking leave around mid December. This mama needs to work as long as possible, before taking a well deserved break! The break is the few days I have with my mom and family, before the baby arrives, not after. After baby #2 is here, I am back to a full time job, with a night shift!

I was worried initially about how to manage the opening of a practice with a second baby in tow. However, at this time, I have realised that we are in a good place, with a reliable network of caregivers around us. Sure, every now and then, something unexpected may happen, but those moments are rare. For the most part, we got THIS!

I also secretly cannot wait for my life to become even crazier. I felt my heart grow when my daughter was born, and it continues to grow and break in various ways with each passing day.

Aashi will ever so often, do something cute, funny or unexpected that melts your heart. Yesterday, she said ‘Mama, I love you’ and gave me a big warm hug. She did this every 2-3 minutes as we were having dinner together. I was taken by surprise at her words initially, and later realized she’s just mirroring me.

I told my husband about it, and he immediately said he should be saying that to her too, so he can hear it back from her- haha!

Those are the updates from the last few months. It’s why things have been a little silent around here. I do try to post a reel frequently but ofcourse, it takes me a week or more to edit them.

I’m going to be doing more special care dentistry related reels very soon as well. Please stay tuned for that. The location for special care dentistry classes will be at my office in San Carlos, if you’re interested in attending. 

If you’re interested in signing up as a patient for the practice, we will soon have a sign up form coming up. Be on the lookout for that as well. More updates to be added!!