A tale of teeth.

                     It's funny how in a split second your kids graduate from littles to full-on kids.
    When I took Pax to AWANAS last Wednesday night, he was just as he'd always been. When I picked him up...well, first I ran into the neighbor girl. She told me Pax has showed her his lost tooth-which was news to me, as he'd had all his teeth when I dropped him off. Then the AWANAS director ran up to me with a clipboard..."I'm so sorry, but I need you to fill out this incident report," she says, and I can't help but think uhoh..what did my rambunctious boy do now?
       Turns out what he did was simply goof off with another kid from his class (ie, roughhouse in the gym during gametime) and somehow or other, as the teachers were asking the boys to stop-Pax got the perfect whack to the mouth-and a tooth popped out. A tooth we didn't even know was loose!
      Loose it must have been though, for there was no fat lip, not much blood-so it couldn't have been that hard a hit. Pax? I don't think he even noticed he had been hit, once he realized his tooth had popped out. Apparently there was a moment of teachers scrambling on the ground looking for the tooth (which they found-bless them!); and then just lots of excitement on Pax's part. He was THRILLED!! So we did the whole thing, tooth in a bag under the pillow, and the "ToothFairy" visited and left a glittery note and a doller. Pax found that at 4am, when he reached under his pillow and then proceeded to flip on the light, which woke the baby, who started to cry, which woke Adam and I up (who lived in  The House that Jack Built)...I am admittedly not at my best at 4am. But an excited, gap-toothed Pax was soon tucked sweetly and happily back into bed with his letter; and a very awake one and a half year old wanted nothing to do with sleep. "A'done," he told me.
"A'done nigh-night. A'done,"
         Needless to say, I ended up with a baby in bed, snuggled down sweetly beside me, who kept insisting he was "A'done nigh-night," and patting my face to make sure I was, too.
And just like that, my little boy is officially a KID who looses teeth!
Fast forward 4 days...
Sunday I sang at church, so I was out the door by 7:25, with only Blythe and Adam awake to kiss goodbye. Adam did the whole get-everyone-clean-and-ready-for-church bit, which he's actually quite good at, and I got home right about noon. Blaise came running up to me fussing...unusual for him. Adam commented that he'd been fussy and didn't eat anything that morning or for lunch; I figured he might be teething and so his mouth was hurting. Well, I was half right.
When I asked him if his mouth hurt, he nodded, and I sat down with him in the chair to look for new teeth. What I found was this...

I don't know if you can see it, but his right front tooth is cracked prettymuch right up the center. I gasped, and Adam asked what he'd missed.

Turns out the poor baby had taken a fall in the shower that morning while Adam was getting Blythe and Blaise ready; we have stone-like tile and it's incredibly unforgiving. But at the time, Adam didn't see much blood or a crack-we're pretty sure it started small and then just kept growing, as is evidenced by the next picture. But I was pretty sure as soon as I saw the crack that the tooth would have to be pulled.  We quickly gave him a little ibuprofen (poor baby was hurting so much!) and called the dentist-I called the family dentist here we'd just started seeing, and Adam called a student dentist he has met recently through the dental school at AT Still.
     The clinic is free for students and discounted for family; and since Adam has hole-y teeth, we've been taking advantage of that perk :) It was totally a God-thing that he even had Kelly's number-she'd randomly called him at 8:10 Friday morning to be sure he was coming for his 8:30 appointment, and good think she did! She told us Blaise needed to be seen as soon as possible and personally got in touch  with the pediodontist early Monday morning to set up an appoinment for him, then called me to tell me...seriously such a blessing because I'd called the clinic that morning and left a message, but hadn't known the receptionist was out of the office and wouldn't get my message till 1pm!
    We showed up at 1 with a sleepy, hurting little boy and two big kids who thought they were on an adventure. Blythe had a hard morning with my attention elsewhere and worry for her little brother (which mostly shows itself through tears about other things...she's learning though :) but once we were on the road to "fix" it she was good. Adam wanted to be there to help out (and, honestly, to get out of a long lecture he didn't need to be at...they're all so ready for break!) so, although I had great offers of help from some of the other PA mamas, he came over to take the bigs and I headed in with Blaise. A 3rd-year dental student came down and gave Blaise a sticker (and Pax, and Blythe) to try to "make friends"...he was cautiously friendly, but knew we weren't there for fun. And, boy, was it not fun! Don't get me wrong, the dental students did a great job and the dentist was informative and helpful. But having to help strap your baby down in a "papoose" (basically a straitjacket) so he can have shots and a tooth yanked out is not.fun. He screamed the entire time, and when they waited for a few minutes to let his gums numb after the shots he kept telling them "NAO!!" as in, "Blaise, do you want a lollypop afterwords?" "NAO!!" (vehement head shake) "Blaise, do you want another truck sticker?" "NAO!!" shaking his head even more vehemently. Then he looked at me and pleaded, "A'done! A'done!" and it broke my mama-heart.
    I'm so thankful I was able to be there with him, helping to hold him, talking to him the whole time...I don't know if it helped him at all, but it sure helped me. I would've been a wreak otherwise. Then-yank, yank (the tooth came out in 2 pieces, it had split so much) and it was done. Must have been quite a sight, though, the two dental students, me, the DDS, and the hygienist all crammed in to this teeny room with a screaming toddler! The 4th year student put gaze in his mouth and asked me to hold it down to stop the bleeding, and I was finally, finally able to hold his little head and sing "Baby Mine," and his eyes locked on mine and he started to calm down.

I  snapped this before we headed into the dental clinic

Once they unstrapped him, I held the gauze in a long as possible but the kid is STRONG and after the gushing stopped, I gave up and just let him snuggle me, chest to chest. He grabbed his blankie and me and cried...and cried...and finally, finally after lots of rocking and soothing calmed down. At the end he even smiled at the 3rd year who'd actually done the yanking; although he still wanted nothing to do with the stickers and toy chest gifts they tried to appease him with and just said "NAO!!" and threw the things back at them. I can't say I really blame him, poor baby.
Thankfully, by that evening he was already SO much better-he chowed down two large pieces of chicken pot pie, and then proceeded to terrorize his sister and the Christmas tree.  (a sure sign he was feeling better!) The 3rd or 4th time I found him between the window and the tree, I told him firmly "Blaise, no touch!" his response? A sweet, now-very-gap-toothed smile and "Bye bye, Mama. Shhee ya!"
Although he wasn't planning on going anywhere...
So now our daughter is the only one yet to lose a tooth; and our baby will have one front tooth for many, many years. The dentist wants us to come in for a re-check next month...I'm not holding my breath for a smooth visit then :)
Ahhhh, my gap-toothed boys. How I love them, but this mama is expecting some grey hair soon !