I think a couple of you saw this on FB, but I am not getting over it so I'm posting it here, too.
We stayed overnight in Hilton Head on our way back from FL. After being cooped up in the car, DD was running around like a nut, and not 30 seconds after I told her to go brush her teeth, she slipped and went down hard on the tile. A little bleeding, much crying, and as she calmed down, she fell asleep in DH's arms. The next morning, we took another look at her injury and one of her top incisors had been pushed back--it wasn't loose, but it wasn't where it had been. Weird.
Called the dentist, who said it wasn't an emergency and she could come in during normal office hours to have it checked out. They tried to fit her in Monday and couldn't, so we got in first thing yesterday morning. In the mean time, DD had developed a troubling new lisp, which was proof that things had moved around and DH and I weren't overreacting--something was definitely up.
She did great during the exam, great during the x-rays, the cleaning, the fluoride, all of it. Dentist popped over, and after a glance at the x-rays and several seconds of poking around, said the relocated tooth would have to go. Good news: DD has great teeth, perfect bite, excellent spacing, every tooth was just where it should have been (except for the newly moved one). (This is all DH, by the way--he never needed braces, I had them forever.) Bad news: the moved tooth was now interfering with her bite, obviously interfering with her speech, and potentially going to mess with the permanent tooth that would eventually replace it. As I was digesting this and trying not to flip out, Dentist said she actually had a cancellation and could do it right then. So I went for it.
DD was fine until about a minute after it was over and they cut off the nitrous--then she started screaming, trying to pull the mask off, trying to pull the gauze out of her mouth, flighting to sit up, etc. Not fun. She literally screamed until I got her home, gave her Tylenol while she was still in her car seat, and started driving to get her a dentist-recommended milkshake. At that point, she fell asleep, and when she woke up she was much better. She is fine now, but I am having a hard time accepting that her tooth is really, truly gone. You can't even tell, really, except when she smiles. And it's not even an aesthetic issue, I just genuinely feel like some part of my kid is missing, and it's unsettling. I thought I'd feel better once she felt better, but so far I don't.
I also feel really judge-worthy, even though I'm self-aware enough to know that that's 99% me judging me, and that most people don't notice or care about my kid's teeth. But it's still awkward to be checking out with a screaming kid as the receptionist yells above her "And did she only need the one tooth extracted today?" I felt like Honey Boo-Boo's mother might feel, if she had anything resembling shame.
Also judgeworthy: she broke her arm in Atlanta last summer, and now two separate people have commented that she injures herself "every time" we go somewhere. Even though we have also been to Arkansas three times, Wisconsin once, and New Orleans once between the broken arm and the lost tooth without so much as a paper cut. (Not to mention all the trips before the broken arm.) But it does make me feel like a crap parent.
�