a chipped tooth

this morning, addy was playing in a cardboard box while i was in another room...nothing unusual about that. suddenly a loud cry...again, nothing unusual. so i go to see what the crying is about & addy's holding her sippy cup in her mouth, crying a bit. so i pick her up & give her a hug & then i take her upstairs to change her clothes & brush her teeth. a few minutes later, as i was brushing her hair i noticed blood on the shoulder of my shirt. then i notice addy desperately trying to brush her teeth (hhmm, nothing unusual about that, either!) so i look in her mouth to find out why she was bleeding & low & behold there's the chipped front tooth! apparently, brushing her teeth helped to ease the pain or whatever she was feeling from the head bang that must have occured...so she brushed her teeth for quite a while this morning while i tried to figure out what to do exactly.

wife: call the pediatrician. leave message. wait for nurse to call back. call pediatrician again & thist time ask to speak with nurse ASAP. pediatric nurse says to call the dentist. call hubby to tell him we will have doc appointment today. hubby says he will call dentist. hubby calls dentist. dentist doesn't open until 11. hubby waits to call dentist after 11. dentist says to call pediatric dentist. hubby finds pediatric dentist. hubby calls ped dentist & schedules appointment. somewhere is mention of using cold laser to see if her nerves are raw...everyone a bit worried about this prospect. wife calls hubby from park to see what's going on. hubby tells wife of appointment. wife takes child to dentist at 4:30...

so we're at the (pediatric) dentist & addy is just loving all their toys & as soon as they call her name, she starts running towards the nurse, waving. very outgoing little lady, she is. she loves the nurses, loves that they have balloons, love that they are oogling over her & she is just smiling & posing & laughing. it was pretty great times. she lays back for both the nurse & the dentist & even sits still for an x-ray, while biting on a plate & being held by two strangers (who love her, so she loves them) b/c pregnant mama can't be near an x-ray.

here's the scoop: the chip is very close to the nerve (egads) so they didn't want to file it, fearing that they will hit or expose the nerve, even though the tooth is fairly jagged & sharp (no worries, addy has taken to eating mulch lately, so that may help smooth it out...). they could put temporary plates (nothing permanent since these aren't her adult teeth) or something like that (the dentist spoke very softly, i couldn't understand all he was saying) but it would come off soon, yaddayaddayadda! the short of it: if her tooth starts to discolor, become painful to her, or swell we are to go back to the dentist to have another look-see & evaluate from there. until then, she will just have a mark of rambuctiousness that is our addy.

and JUST last week i thought to myself 'addy should have most of her teeth in soon, so she'll have a full set of pearly whites for a smile'... oh well...so goes life with a toddler.