Crrr-ack!

Yesterday just before three o' clock as I've just finished decorating the garland and started putting away the decoration boxes Jillian comes upstairs. She informs me that while she was eating her sucker that she heard a Crrr-ack!! And one of her teeth started hurting. Lovely.

I asked her if she had been biting the sucker, because this child doesn't understand that when something has the name "sucker" it means you are supposed to "suck" on it, not bite it. She told me that all she had been doing was sucking on it. Which, I knew, was a lie. I know that she bites on suckers and hard candy all. the. time. I told her that I needed to know if she had been biting on the sucker and that I wouldn't be mad about it but I needed to know the truth. She then said that yes she had bitten down on the sucker and heard a crack AND the tooth was loose. Even lovlier.

I asked her to show me what tooth it was. When she was really little, like one or two (I can't remember because my memory is seriously like a sieve) she had to have four of her bottom teeth capped because they all had cavities in them. We took her to a pediatric dentist and they did it under general anesthesia. They were capped in silver. It was one of those little silver teeth...thankfully.

I know that sounds weird but I was grateful it was one of those and not one of her more healthy teeth because since those four she hasn't had any cavities at all. She's actually already lost one of the silver teeth. It was the one in front of the one that was now cracked. We had known that this one was going to fall out kind of like the other one because it was already loose but we wanted to keep it in there as long as we could.

I asked her if it was hurting and she said that it was a little. I had her take a drink of water to see if that made a difference. There was no pain with the drinking of water so that was good but the tooth was now REALLY wiggly and I knew that I couldn't pull it out because it was not supposed to be coming out now and so the root that was still attached would be attached good. It was hurting her when she would close her mouth and bite down though.

A call was made to my dentist's office and amazingly enough they had just had a three o' clock cancellation. Off we went. We got there right at three. We didn't get out of there until after six. Three hours plus some. They had been on schedule when the receptionist had told me about the cancellation but somewhere in the ten minutes it took me to drive there a "procedure" had crept up. So we sat in the waiting room until 5:30.

When we finally saw the dentist he agreed that the tooth would have to come out. Thankfully they have ipods there that she could watch Squonge Bob (her pronunciation). They had to give her three shots of the Novocaine because when they started working on the tooth she started to jump a little, but she didn't cry. She started to jump a little towards the end and when they were finished she looked at me and I knew she was about ready to start crying. I felt so bad. She said that it still hurt so the dentist gave her one more small shot to numb it up a little more while it healed and she was fine after that. She's a tough kid.

They gave her all three pieces of her tooth the upper part and the two roots that they had to dig out. The cute dental assistant gave them to her in a little treasure chest. And she got to get three prizes to take home. She didn't much like how the numbness felt but then who does. By the time we had dinner (around 8 o' clock) and put the kids to bed between 8:30 and 9 she was back to her normal self and the numbness was wearing off.

This morning the tooth fairy had left her a quarter for each part of the tooth and she is none the worse for the wear. There will have to be a spacer put in because she is now missing two of her bottom teeth that are right next to each other.

The receptionist kept apologizing for the wait that we were having. We were there a long time. But I was just grateful that they had had the opening and that they were able to get it done today. Because I'm sure the pain would have just gotten worse as the night wore on and then I would have had to call early this morning to see if they had an emergency chair open and if they did she would have missed school today. Plus mouth pain is one of THE worst pains, in my book.

I just sent her out the door and off to school. I'm sure she'll tell her teacher all about her adventures in the dentist chair. And the tooth and the tooth fairy.