katie's broken teeth

I apologize for the graphic picture. We had a tragedy concerning two of Katie's little baby teeth. She was out playing on the swingset with Teresa and in the blink of an eye went from singing and laughing with Teresa to screaming with blood covering her face. Joe brought her in and laid her on the changing table. At first I thought she just had a bloody nose and a split lip. However, after cleaning her up and taking a really good look at her mouth I realized she did not get off so lightly.

I have to be honest, I gagged and came thisclose to throwing up when I took my first look into her mouth. The top front teeth were pushed so far back they were almost pointing to the back of her mouth. The roots of her teeth had come through the gum and her gum was mangled. After the initial screaming, she got unusually quiet and lay in Joe's lap while he held an ice pack to her mouth. Of course this happened Friday evening of Labor Day weekend. I put a call in to our dentist's answering service for the dentist to call us and advise us on what to do next. An hour later we were still waiting on the dentist's call so I called the service again. Finally two hours later he called back. I described what happened and her injury. He asked if she could close her mouth, which she could do. So he told me she should be fine and to just keep an eye on her gums to make sure she didn't get an abscess. I repeated that her teeth and gum looked like road kill, but I think he thought I was just another overreacting mother, because he said not to worry and if I really felt it was necessary I could bring her in the following week.

Which of course I did. The dentist took one look at her teeth and gums and said "ummm...yeah, they've got to come out." I was surprised at how sad I felt about her losing her teeth. I love my kids baby teeth. I love their little smiles with those perfect little pearly teeth. I like looking at their kindergarten pictures with those sweet little smiles and then love the progression to gap toothed smiles and finally to looking way too big with their adult teeth all in a row in the next couple grades pictures. I got over this foolishness pretty quickly. Even more upsetting, I could not go with her for her dental surgery. I was already bringing Sam to an all day date with a neuropsychologist so Daddy was going to have to go with her. It near about killed me not to be with my baby for this. I insisted Joe call me and update me every 4 minutes. He was very good and kept me in the loop. I even talked to Katie before and right after. She did awesome and while I am a wee tiny bit sad about her missing teeth, her smile is none the dimmer without them.

Katie....show us your new smile

C'mon...open your mouth and smile

Don't you be a stubborn monkey...one smile...pleeeeaaasee?

GORGEOUS!