Mother of the Year

(I hate to admit that this happen a while ago, but it deserves its own post and not just a brief re-cap)
Remember Mary cracked her tooth? Remember we got it fixed?

A little over a month after we got it fixed, Mary and I were at Target. Each time we go, she insists on getting a food pouch for a treat, this time it was a new flavor with raspberries in it. Halfway through the shopping trip, she said “Something in my mouth” I was sure it was just a raspberry seed. When I held up my hand for her to spit it out, she stuck out her tongue and there was the portion of her tooth that had been fixed. Damn - nice goin' "Mother of the Year".

That same day when she was lying on the changing table, it looked like her nose was crooked. She also kept commenting that her tooth hurt, but I waved it off that it had a sharp edge and that she had bitten her lip or tongue. That night she was up every hour screaming that her mouth hurt, again thought it was because she bit her tongue.

The next morning we had French toast, when Mary tried to bite into a piece, she took it out of her mouth and said “this hurt my tooth” – that’s when I knew something may actually be up. I peeked inside her mouth and her gums were so swollen the tooth on the outside of her broken tooth was almost covered by her bright red gum. Uh-oh.

We gave her Tylenol and had another rough night. The next morning was Monday, I went to work and Brian called the dentist, they could get her in at 11:30am. The blessed Dr. Bloom took a look at her and then marched her up stairs to the oral surgeon. The tooth was coming out. This is where a working mom panics, clears the calendar, forwards the office phone and runs out to the car. It was a long drive home – Surgery? She had to have oral surgery? How does this get performed on such a little mouth?

It turns out when she smacked her tooth way back in February, an infection started and now it was full blown yucky. Apparently it is common for toddlers to have this.

When I got to the doctor’s office. I went to the desk to tell them I was Mary’s mom. I was sure she was mid-procedure, wasn’t sure if she would be sedated, so I told them I would just be in the waiting room. Instead they showed me back to the room where Brian had a sleeping Mary in his arms. When I asked Brian “What did they give her” he told me “nothing” she was just so exhausted from all the pain, that she was sound asleep sitting up in his arms.

I was there for about a minute and she woke up and wanted me to hold her. She had stickers all over her front from all of the nice nurses J I peeked in her mouth again and the tooth that had been chipped and about half the size of the healthy tooth was now hanging down past the healthy teeth – Her little body was trying to push this yucky tooth out.

It turns out that the crooked nose, the cap falling out, the complaining of a hurt tooth was all this infection starting and I shrugged it off...yes, I am "Mother of the Year".

The nurse came back and had a topical on the end of a long q-tip, she told me to rub it on the inside and outside of her gum by the hurt tooth, but it would make her whole mouth numb. A few minutes after I did, Mary was blowing bubbles from her numb lips. She sat up shook her head and said, “I all bettah!” Almost, little one.

Then the doctor came in, said this will only take a few minutes and they would bring her out to the room. Brian stayed and lingered in the room a bit – I don’t think he got the message that we were supposed to go. I get it, a little one will follow instructions better from others when mom or dad isn’t around. We went to the waiting room for maybe 5 min – they came and brought us to the recovery area and brought out Mary with a little blood on the corner of her mouth. I can't imagine they had to pull too hard on a tooth that was already most of the way out.

As soon as she saw us she started crying (exactly why we weren’t in the room!). We sat for a moment in the recovery area, but I didn’t want her crying to freak out the other patients, so we went out to the car.

It was an unusually hot day, so I sent Brian in the Jeep to go get motrin and I cranked the air and held Mary in the front seat. What is a little funny is that there is a Pediatric dentist in the same building. So while I’m holding Mary in the car SCREAMING, these kids are showing up and nervously walking into the office…oh, dear. When I finally did move her to her car seat she fell asleep within a mile of the drive.

We went home, she slept a lot, we ate ice cream and she got to watch all the Caillou she wanted.

She was a good little patient.

Our exhausted little Mary after having her tooth pulled.