About three weeks ago, La had a close encounter with some pavement and ended up with a set of swollen lips and some blackish-blue gums. This was her second incident of the year involving trauma to the mouth. The first occurred a few months ago when Brody and La were running around the condo like a pair of madmen, when La suddenly slipped on the bathroom rug and smashed her face into our porcelain tub. Oh the blood. And the crying. And the BLOOD. It was everywhere.
Immediately following each of the two injuries, La experienced general mouth pain (No, duh!) and slightly loose teeth. However, after the most recent collision, one of her teeth - OH DEAR GOD STARTED TURNING COLORS. Note the following photo. Even an untrained eye can clearly see that her one top tooth is practically BLACK.
As if I need another thing to obsess over.
I noticed the discoloration about a week after the injury, and immediately knew deep down in my soul that that sucker was going to turn the color of death and then fall out. Or that the dentist will take one look at that thing and yank it out right there on the spot. One of those things was bound to happen.
Which may have been acceptable if we still lived on Spinnaker Run in Aurora Shores. For those of you not familiar with that neighborhood, it's themed, well, ... nautically. As in, every single street is named some cutesy thing like "Regatta Trail" or "Clipper's Cove" or "Pirate's Trail" or "Commodore Cove" or, my favorite, "Spinnaker Run." I used to take La on walks to the lake that was in the neighborhood and we would spend the entire walk home speaking in Pirate talk (I cannot take credit for this ... grandma Linda started the shenanigans). I would close one eye and scrunch up my face and – using my gruffest voice – say, "Shiver me timbers, La ... Land ho! Ahoy! I have spotted our home on Spinnak-arrrrrr through me looking glass. What say we take a ride on your bike or color with some sidewalk chalk? ARRRRR matey!"
It was our thing, people.
So, if she were indeed to – LET IT NOT BE SO – lose her tooth, It may have been okay while we lived in a pirate-themed community. She simply would have looked a bit more piratey and probably would have matched the facade of our neighborhood.
Over and over I thought to myself, "Self, it would be just fine if La were to lose that tooth. Just fine indeed. Sure, she wouldn't have a front tooth for, say, 4 or 5 more years, but it would be fine. We would get used to it. We would probably even say that she is even cuter now than when she had a full set of pearly whites. That big black gap is very becoming on La, don't you agree, self??!!"
Today I took a half-day off work and went to the dentist with La. She was a true champ. She bit down on those awful spiky cardboard things and let the dental assistant snap x-rays of her teeth without saying boo. She then climbed right into the dental chaise lounge-thing and waited patiently for the dentist. When he got there he introduced himself as "Dr. CJ" and high-fived La just for being there. I liked him right away, and so did La. He asked me if she had been complaining of any tooth pain. I said yes, but only when she eats something hard or drinks something really cold. He shined his big light on her mouth and pushed on her teeth with her fingers and showed me her x-ray and then declared:
There is nothing wrong with your daughter's tooth.
Bu-bu-but ... what about the pain?! And the tooth was LOOSE, I swear! And what about the sickening color? He of course had an explanation for all of that. Apparently she has a bruise inside her tooth. It's normal for kids who experience oral trauma. He told me not to feed her anything really hard and not to give her any really cold drinks. And the color may lighten, or it may stay the same.
And that was that.
So, La and I walked across the street to enjoy a celebratory bagel in honor of the joyous gift of another day with all of our teeth intact.
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