Our little neighbor girl Anna turned six in January. She has the lauded position of having lost five teeth already. H hasn't lost any. I am not surprised. I thought she would never get her first tooth as a baby ( I think she was almost 11 months). Last Wednesday, Anna, H and K were playing hide and seek. When they play it isn't quiet, they giggly endlessly and run like crazy. K and H had a head on collision in the midst of the game. I heard H screaming and I heard Anna at the top of the stairs screaming, "There's blood." I walked to the foot of the stairs, not in a hurry, as crying -hurts are daily events. This time though H's front tooth was suddenly wiggly and bleeding. I panicked. "T! Get T!" Not helpful. Mothers are supposed to be calm and reassuring, not hysterical about a little tooth that isn't even a permanent one. For some reason I had ideas screaming in my head about how to save a tooth that falls out so a dentist can put it back in. Not applicable in this situation. I needed to calm down.
It was 7 pm. We had been to a dentist since moving here, but had a bad experience (a story for a different day). All you need to know is that when T had a dental emergency and we paged the dentist, he unapologetically called back mid-morning of the next day. We didn't want to go back. We called the hospital emergency room. Surely they knew what to do and where to go in dental emergency. Isn't there a dental emergency clinic or something? No actually, not here anyway and the emergency room won't treat teeth. We paged a dentist a neighbor recommended. He called back right away. (Wow...he is an awesome dentist and kudos to him for his promptness since I found out today he is a father of five!). He said it wasn't a big deal, since it was a baby tooth. Let it fall out don't worry about it. There shouldn't be any pain as baby teeth don't have many nerves. If there was pain call back, but be careful because sometimes worry makes kids think there is pain.
A week passed and we watched. The tooth didn't get any looser and sometimes she complained of pain, sometimes she didn't. The tooth was turning gray. I suspected she was just worried and not really in pain (I so often suspect the worst of my child, but they rarely give me reason to, why is that?) We finally went to the dentist this morning. He pulled the tooth. He told us that dentally (a word?) H is only about 4 years old. Her permanent teeth won't come in for a while. And by taking out the tooth, that one might not come in for a year and a half. Wow, over a year of being toothless. He said the tooth had to come out because it was dying and loose so a root canal couldn't save it (that would be preferred given how far up the adult teeth are). He also said her permanent front teeth appeared to be huge and while he couldn't guarantee anything, he suspected braces in her future, around age 15 and suggested we started saving now. Wow.
H's grin is so cute, though maybe not for over a year. She was a trooper. Super brave, no crying, totally still when necessary, and giggly. She charmed the whole office. Wow. She is so mature.
The kindergarten teacher and the secretary at Hadley's school scowled at me when I brought H in an hour and a half late. There was a long note in the parent bulletin this week about how they were taking the Iowa test of basic skills this week and not to schedule any appointments. So much for my model parent image. Wow. You'd think they would understand.
To paraphrase a line in Kevin Henke's children books about Lily, the mouse, the whole experience was wow, that's about all I can say. WOW.
It was 7 pm. We had been to a dentist since moving here, but had a bad experience (a story for a different day). All you need to know is that when T had a dental emergency and we paged the dentist, he unapologetically called back mid-morning of the next day. We didn't want to go back. We called the hospital emergency room. Surely they knew what to do and where to go in dental emergency. Isn't there a dental emergency clinic or something? No actually, not here anyway and the emergency room won't treat teeth. We paged a dentist a neighbor recommended. He called back right away. (Wow...he is an awesome dentist and kudos to him for his promptness since I found out today he is a father of five!). He said it wasn't a big deal, since it was a baby tooth. Let it fall out don't worry about it. There shouldn't be any pain as baby teeth don't have many nerves. If there was pain call back, but be careful because sometimes worry makes kids think there is pain.
A week passed and we watched. The tooth didn't get any looser and sometimes she complained of pain, sometimes she didn't. The tooth was turning gray. I suspected she was just worried and not really in pain (I so often suspect the worst of my child, but they rarely give me reason to, why is that?) We finally went to the dentist this morning. He pulled the tooth. He told us that dentally (a word?) H is only about 4 years old. Her permanent teeth won't come in for a while. And by taking out the tooth, that one might not come in for a year and a half. Wow, over a year of being toothless. He said the tooth had to come out because it was dying and loose so a root canal couldn't save it (that would be preferred given how far up the adult teeth are). He also said her permanent front teeth appeared to be huge and while he couldn't guarantee anything, he suspected braces in her future, around age 15 and suggested we started saving now. Wow.
H's grin is so cute, though maybe not for over a year. She was a trooper. Super brave, no crying, totally still when necessary, and giggly. She charmed the whole office. Wow. She is so mature.
The kindergarten teacher and the secretary at Hadley's school scowled at me when I brought H in an hour and a half late. There was a long note in the parent bulletin this week about how they were taking the Iowa test of basic skills this week and not to schedule any appointments. So much for my model parent image. Wow. You'd think they would understand.
To paraphrase a line in Kevin Henke's children books about Lily, the mouse, the whole experience was wow, that's about all I can say. WOW.
2 comments:
Ditto that. Wow! Emma is pretty scared of the dentist we have a good dentist. You could have called Kara too. I can't believe she will be toothless for almost 2 years. Lets hope she likes it then too. Big front teeth run in my family. It's in general an ackward stage.
Good thing that the doctor you contacted called back right away. For how long then was H actually toothless? Let's just hope that braces wouldn't really be in order.
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