a hair-raising, tooth-losing experience

On Saturday morning if you would have asked how many teeth Ruby has, I would have told you eleven. However Saturday night she was toddling around in the backyard carrying a water bottle, tripped and fell, hitting her front, top tooth on the water bottle. Now she has ten. Her chompers that used to feature a very toothy smile, has since gone a bit red-neck.

Initially we thought she had knocked it out and swallowed it in all the commotion of blood and spit- yuck- since we couldn't the tooth anywhere. Today she visited the dentist for the first time who also thought she had cleanly knocked out the tooth. But with an x-ray- that she wasn't too pleased about- we found out that she had actually jammed the tooth straight up, back into her gums. ouch. So now we're doing the 'wait and see' thing waiting to see if it will start to come down again or if the contact sport killed it and it will have to be 'extracted'- yuck and ouch. So here's hoping she will get her baby front tooth... again.

It's times like that when I feel totally unqualified to be a mom. Yes I dealt reasonably well with it, but at those times I want an EMT, Nurse, Fire fighter, Doctor, Dentist, and full staff of trained professionals including a Gymnast, a Tight-End or a Wide Receiver on staff that can quickly swoop in and catch Ruby. I need to wrap that kid in bubble wrap so that when she thinks she can climb her dollhouse or rocking moose, she can bounce back a bit. Not entirely reasonable, but it doesn't mean I still don't want it. Thankfully I have good family and friends that fill most of those job descriptions, including a husband giving blessings, one sister that happened to be her for the collision and another who tagged along to the dentist to help distract Ruby -and let's be honest, distract me- from what was going on. But just in case anyone knows of an out-of-work Wide Receiver, let me know. Maybe if the NFL lock out continues, I'll be in luck.