Tooth day

So I know I haven't posted in a while....ok, not since I started this thing. Never mind that. We've had a fun and busy summer - first the birth of Sadie, then a family vacation in CO followed by a week visiting more family in Oklahoma, not to mention a whole string of guests at Strait B&B (our house) throughout the last couple of months. Throw in a garage sale and Andrew's birthday and we were about to wrap up the summer quite nicely when last week, Parker started complaining (unintelligably, of course) about something going on in his nose/mouth area. I scheduled an appointment with his pediatrician to check him out thinking maybe he stuck something up his nose. *Anyone who knows Parker knows this is a completely believable scenario.* I was also kinda concerned that it may have something to do with his top front teeth as he fell and hurt them over three months ago. At the time that he hurt them, they bled and were loose for a while but they seemed to be doing just fine as of late. Well, as we were sitting in the doctor's office (Andrew was actually with me which was truly a blessing) I happened to open Parker's mouth to look in it.... as I had done the night before when I had seen NOTHING.... only to find that there was puss coming out between his gums and one of his teeth. It was discovered virutally immediately that one tooth had an abcsess, and, according to the nurse practitioner, would likely need to be pulled. I'll spare you the dramatics, but suffice it to say that I was a bit overwhelmed at this news since Parker's permanent teeth won't come in for about 4-5 years. It's important, at this point, to mention that as a child, my primary fear was that something would happen to my teeth and my parents wouldn't pay to have them fixed....still not sure why I was so afraid of this because it's not like Mom and Dad were threatening me with these kinds of things. So here I was, faced with my worst nightmare...only I was on the other side of it. So as the nurse practitioner called a pediatric dentist for us, I (unsuccessfully) tried to pull myself together. She came back to the room having made an appointment for that afternoon because when the dentist office heard our situation, they decided to treat us as an emergency, something that didn't quite lift my spirits. Once at the dentist office, Andrew went back with Parker to take an x-ray while I was filling out paperwork (only one parent can accompany the child past the waiting room at this particular office). The very nice receptionist lady came over to explain the 'only-one-parent policy', and I immediately started bawling. She probably thought I was nuts, but actually managed to treat me like my reaction was normal. Anyhow, Andrew came back with the fantastic news that the x-ray showed significant damage to BOTH teeth, only to further my angst. We were trying to figure out what to do when the (also very nice) dentist came out to talk to us. We basically needed to pull the teeth.... there was sort of an option to do root canals on both, but the dentist said that in this situation with the damage that was already done, it would VERY likely not work on either tooth and we'd be back in to have them pulled anyhow. And the really fun part about all of this that I have failed to mention is that we have no dental insurance. Zero. The dentist says that we can think about it, but something needed to be done within a few days. We ended up making an appointment to take out the teeth two days later while, in reality, neither of us were prepared to really accept that's what would happen. After a day of weighing every pro and con and talking again to the dentist who, again, recommended pulling them, we came to the realization that this was the best decision we could make to prevent any further trouble for Parker. Then came tooth-pulling day. By this time, my mental meltdown was over but the unlikely byproduct of my (over)reaction was that Andrew was now pretty upset about the whole thing. Andrew went back with Parker for the "extractions" ... I said my meltdown was over - I didn't say that I was ready to watch some dentist, however nice, pull my baby's teeth out of his mouth. I did, however, get to hear the screaming from the waiting room. At some point the same nice receptionist lady went back to check and came back with the news that they were done, and a few minutes later I saw Andrew and Parker coming out from the back. I was a bit relieved to see that Parker looked slightly less traumatized than Andrew. I tried to give Parker a hug, but he was too busy trying to get a bouncy ball with his good-patient-chuck-e-cheese-like token. We came home and spent the rest of the day spoiling Parker, and as it turns out, kids ARE pretty adaptable. It's been three days, and Parker is doing great. Andrew and I are considering therapy, but whatever.

Here is the last pic of Parker with all of his baby teeth:

Showing off his new smile!