An unwanted visit from the Tooth Fairy...

WOW!!! The tooth fairy gave me $5!!!
Yep, that's where my tooth should be...just one away from my 2 front teeth!

I certainly am not excited that Rachel got to experience the tooth fairy at 4 years old, but we made the best of it. After a long week at the beach and a fun birthday party, we came home last night and were settling down before bath time. Ironically, we had just been talking about dentists with Jennifer. She was telling us about a really cool pediatric one that's new in Athens. We were saying that we need to get Rachel an appointment since she's supposed to have gone last year. Anyway, we were all in the den talking and watching tv and enjoying the family time. Rachel was sitting in my lap and Bradley was trying to crawl behind me and we were all on the couch. Somehow, Rachel fell forward and her beautiful face hit the coffee table. The sound was horrible and her cries and tears came instantly. I picked her up and took her to the bathroom where her mouth was bleeding profusely. She was hysterical and so were me and Nick. (Bradley didn't notice or care that anything was going on...turned out to be a good thing since we ignored him for about an hour while we tended to Rachel.) I asked Nick to get me some washcloths and a cup of ice and I tried to calm down my precious little girl who was in pain and scared. While I was wiping her face with a washcloth, I noticed something white fall out of her mouth and it was one of her teeth! I couldn't believe it...a completely intact tooth with a tiny little root on one end and a tiny little blunt tooth on the other. I was horrified but tried to remain calm. I mean, it's certainly not natural to knock out a tooth! I've only lost mine the good old fashioned way, which is when they fell out and I was probably about 9 or 10...NOT 4!!!!! So, I asked Nick to bring me my cell phone so I could call my pediatrician's answering service. I was thinking, "can they put this back in or what? What do we need to do?" So, the answering service had the doctor call me immediately. As soon as they took my message and info., the on-call doctor called me back. He was very nice and said that they do not put baby teeth back into a child's mouth. He wanted to know if I could tell whether or not any of her other teeth were loose or broken or anything. I couldn't tell a darn thing because Rachel was still wailing in my arms and blood was still freely flowing from her mouth. The on-call doctor suggested that I take her the ER to have her checked. I thought about this and thought, "do I want to put Rachel through a long wait at a nasty ER?" and "what can they possibly do for her there?" It's not like they have an on-call dentist to come in and check her out, right? But, I wanted another opinion. Well, thankfully, we have a family dentist connection, so we were able to call Nick's cousin, who is married to a dentist and his whole family is in the dentistry field. Fortunately, several of them were together at a dentist's convention and I was able to speak to one who was a pediatric dentist. He was very nice and advised me to put either a wet tea bag or some cosmetic cotton rounds on the missing tooth cavity. He said to do this with light pressure to stop the bleeding. He also said that in his experience, he has found that when one tooth is completely knocked out like that, most times the others are not necessarily loosened or knocked out too since the one tooth took the brunt of the force. He didn't advise me to go to the ER, and I was very glad. He just said to stop the bleeding, give her soft foods in the next few days and that she would get to enjoy an early visit from the tooth fairy. He also said to have her checked at the dentist at my earliest convenience. Of course, since all this happened on a Saturday night, I have to wait until Monday morning to get an appointment. But, we're hanging in there. Rachel was very hysterical for quite awhile and would panic when she heard me on the phone with the doctors saying she didn't want to go to the doctor and she didn't want him to come to her house. (Like that has ever or would ever happen!) She also said she wanted her tooth back in and she asked how she was going to eat her food without her tooth. Poor little thing had no idea what to think except that she was scared because she knew she was hurting and that her tooth was out and there was lots of blood. I tried to reassure her that she would be able to eat just fine and reminded her of her baby cousin Heather who has only a few teeth but can eat just fine. We also remembered that this tooth was only part of her first set and that she gets a whole new set (from the Dr. Seuss Tooth Book). She started to feel a little better and calmed down some and the bleeding slowed down. We made it into the den in our blood spattered clothes and watched a little Tom & Jerry (Rachel's choice). Nick put Bradley to bed, but we kept Rachel up to make sure her mouth wasn't bleeding. We didn't want to put her to bed and have blood pooling in her mouth while she was trying to sleep. She was so sweet and brave about it all. She cuddled in my lap and said sweet things like, "I love you mommy." Or, "you're the best mommy ever." Of course, the trauma of the evening mixed with my fear and sadness that I had held in had to come out in some quiet tears as I held my sweet baby girl and just thanked God that she was alright. I know it could have been worse and I know how blessed I am to have a sweet child like Rachel. I certainly don't deserve her and can't take credit for her loving ways...I know that comes from someone much more mighty than me! But boy, am I thankful to be apart of her life and to be able to love her and bring her some comfort, especially when she needed it so much! We finally put Rachel in bed and read her a story and she fell asleep immediately.

The only good thing from this experience is that Rachel got to have her first visit from the tooth fairy. Right before we put her in bed, we took her little bitty tooth and taped it into a clear sandwich baggie. (I was afraid it would get lost since it was so small.) As soon as I left Rachel's room, I got Nick and we got some money to put under her pillow. I wanted to give her $20 since it was WAY too early for her to be losing teeth and since it was so painful. Nick wanted to give her .50 cents. We finally compromised on $5. Rach was so excited when she woke up this morning. She called us to come in her room and showed us the money under her pillow. She wanted to show the money to JuJu, so we took the above pictures for her.

We finally got up and got dressed and headed off to Toys-R-Us to buy a toy with the tooth fairy money. We looked and looked all over the store and finally decided on some My Little Pony accessories. Rachel was very satisfied and excited about the whole thing. On the way home, of course the poor girl was getting hungry. She had been afraid to eat anything except yogurt before we left. We tried McDonald's, but when she bit into a fry, she accidentally clicked her top front teeth with her bottom front teeth and started crying. No matter what we tried...chewing on the side, slowly, small pieces, etc...nothing worked. There is no worse feeling than not being able to give your child food. I felt awful that the poor baby was hungry but couldn't find something her teeth could tolerate. So, we went to Publix and got everything we could think of that doesn't require chewing. Poor baby is on a soft foods/liquid diet. We got pudding, applesauce, chicken noodle soup, ice cream, shredded cheese, mashed potatoes, etc...

She also has a slight speech lisp now. I don't know if it's because her top lip is so swollen underneath or if it's because of the missing tooth. But, she's adorable with it. Also, although I would NEVER want my children to lose teeth prematurely and I have always enjoyed her complete set of teeth in a smile, NOTHING could ever take away from her beauty. So, I will not be making a big deal about her missing tooth or making comments about how it looks. I don't want her to be self-conscious about it!

By the way, I have a list of about 20 dentists in the area that I'm going to call in the morning and see who can see us the earliest. I just want to make sure the rest of Rachel's teeth are okay. I'll update you once we go.