Last Thursday was awful. It started out wonderfully. The day was beautiful...sun shining, birds singing...you know all the cliches! So I thought that it would be a great idea to get the kids out of the house & enjoying the warm weather. Wrong.
Rugrat has a new favourite toy. A ride on toy. A ride on toy that goes fast down our sloped driveway. So when he hopped on said toy, I kept a close eye on him. He was having fun at the top of the driveway & seemed content to be there so I turned to help the Princess attach her bike helmet. I turn back & he's gone. Down the driveway, feet in the air, loving every minute of it. (Ya gotta love the fearless nature they have at that age!) So, I'm thinking, worst case scenario, he hits the curb with a little too much speed & falls over to the side, scraps his arm up a bit.
Nope. He happens to hit the spot where the curb is just *that.much* taller than the driveway. Ride on toy...stop. Rugrat...head over heels. I feel like I'm watching all of this happen in slow motion & somehow manage to get to him. Pick him up & his poor wee chin is terribly scraped but more than that is the blood that's coming from his mouth. Still, I'm being optimistic thinking that he's cut his lip or the inside of his mouth. So, I get the King to check it out. I'm told that it looks like he's cracked one of his two front teeth. Glorious.
We phone our family dentist & ask if they take "emergency" patients (Rugrat has never been to the dentist yet) & they do. However, I'm a bit miffed that "emergency" translates to "3 hours later" for them. So, we put Rugrat down for his nap (he's had a rough morning dontchaknow). He sleeps quite peacefully but there is still some blood on his sheets when he wakes up.
Finally, we make it to the dentist. He takes one look at Rugrat and says that he's definitely cracked his tooth & it will need to come out. Ummmm...say what?!? I manage to ask, in my disbelief, when that's going to happen because Rugrat needs to eat & drink & well, those things aren't going so well with that cracked tooth & all. We manage to get in to a pediatric dentist (we were referred there as our family dentist said they would put him to sleep for the extraction so as not to traumatize him) right away! Yahoo!
We arrive at the "new" dentist for him to give us this *huge* speech about how he's a very conservative guy, believes in the body healing itself, yadda, yadda, yadda. Finally, after this $90 "consultation" (grrrr!), he looks in Rugrat's mouth. Then proceeds to tell us to disregard everything he just said because that tooth needs to come out. Ummm, ya. That's why our dentist sent us to you. Could've saved myself $90 there!
They decide that they are *not* going to put Rugrat out...freezing only. My poor guy. I had to leave because I could just not sit there & listen to the screams & watch the King hold him down. I would've snapped. As I sat out in the waiting room with the Princess (she was a saint that day!), I could hardly concentrate listening to the screams. I swear...5 more minutes & I was going in there to put a stop to the extraction. It was terrible. I mean, Rugrat is a very fearless daredevil but c'mon...anyone would have been frightened of the experience he had that day.
Before this, I had a terror. Now, a toothless terror. His smile is forever changed until his adult teeth grow in. But he recovered & he recovered quickly. He's back to his old self. Tried to go down the park slide face first the other day. You aren't going to lose that other front tooth on my watch buddy!
