And The Tooth Will Be Staying

Last Thursday, the girls and I were walking down our hallway on the way to the stairs to go down to the main level of our house. I was carrying Pumpkin, and The Princess dodged in front of us. I took a step to avoid stepping into her… and Pumpkin and I tripped and fell like a ton of bricks. With Pumpkin in my arms, I struggled to take the bulk of the impact, not wanting her to hit a wall, or hit the floor. She hit the floor a bit with her butt and started crying. Figuring she was crying from the shock of it all, rather than an injury (because I thought the Pamper took the hit), I was cuddling her, and then noticed blood running out of her mouth.

Turns out that one of the two tiny little teeth she has (she only has the two bottom ones still) jabbed into her top gum when we fell. Oy.

As she wouldn’t let me open her mouth to look at the wound, I took her to the doctor’s office. While we were there, we saw a guy who is NOT our normal doctor who pooh-poohed the cut, but then said, “But her tooth is loose, so it might fall out.”

I started crying. I know, I know – it’s just a baby tooth – but really, when you think about it, would YOU want your kid to lose 50% of her teeth? See, when I put it that way, it sounds really horrible, doesn’t it? Freaked out, I called my dentist on the drive home and he said to watch the tooth, feed her soft foods only, and if it changes color, the tooth is dead, and bring her to a pediatric dentist, because she’d likely need help having it extracted.

That did NOT ease my mind.

Today, The Princess had an appointment with her pediatric dentist who was able to squeeze in Pumpkin for a peek at her toofers. Though she squirmed and fussed, Pumpkin did let the dentist take a peek, and the dentist said the tooth is not even loose anymore, and that she’s 99% sure that it will stay put. She further eased my mind by telling me that Pumpkin picked a great time to injure herself, because her teeth will never be stronger than they are now. Who knew.

So, the tooth is where it is for now. Pumpkin can eat crunchy foods again (which is awesome because she’s working on some of those upper teeth and she loves those hard zwieback things). Sure, I spent $51 for the dentist to poke in her mouth for three minutes – but it was well worth every penny.