Say CHEESE!

Olivia is definitely a dare devil. There is nothing too high or sharp or scary for her. She will scale the wall, climb onto the counters, ride the fastest ride, and so on. With all of her dangerous tricks there have been more than a few bad falls. She has had goose eggs, bloody lips, and bruises galore and even had her first CAT SCAN when she was less than a year old. However, as fate had it, just days before we made our move from San Antonio little Livi slipped and fell on our kitchen tile while I was making dinner one night and not only put her baby teeth through her lip but also broke both of her top two teeth right out of her tiny mouth. The scene was awful with blood pouring out of her mouth mixed with all of her tears and spit. Of course I was in panic mode since Ben wasn't home and I wasn't sure if we should head to the ER or try and take care of it at home. Isabelle was terrified and was plugging her ears, making it difficult to hear me when I was yelling at her for help with ice and a towel!

My first call was to the pediatrician who told me to go straight to the ER. No one ever wants to make that trip and especially alone with two small screaming children one whom is bleeding profusely from the mouth. I thought a second opinion would be great and finally got a pediatric dentist on the phone and talked through the damage with her. I was hoping to avoid a hospital trip if possible and thankfully the dentist told me how to care for her that night and that she would see her first thing the following morning. (Why do all bad things like this happen right at 5:00pm and end of business day?)

After several minutes we had managed to stop the bleeding and the crying and through the swollen smile could see poor Livi's broken front two teeth. It was heartbreaking to me as a mother but I was very relieved when we learned that her roots were not damaged and that her teeth were only cosmetically broken. Phew!

Over the next couple of weeks we almost got used to little Livi's funny smile but once we were settled enough in Houston to establish a good pediatric dentist we paid him a visit and scheduled her surgery for just days down the calendar.

The morning of the surgery was tough. Olivia had to fast and there were some complications with the dentist that morning and we were pushed till nearly 10:30am before we began. That is a long time to keep a toddler busy without letting her have a drink or snack. Finally it was our turn to begin and the anesthesiologist gave Olivia a quick shot and literally moments later she was "drunk" in our arms. The dentist then carried her back to the operating room where he inserted an IV and began her drip to knock her out cold. The minutes seemed long but just shy of an hour we were visited again by the dentist telling us he was successful. Thankfully she had enough teeth left that he didn't have to cap or pull them but rather added to them to make them look "normal" again. He also performed a frenectomy in her upper gums and she left with a row of stitches inside her tiny mouth.

After a waiting period where she was examined we were finally told we could head home. It was after lunch by now and we were all ready for this experience to be over. Livi had a little bit of a tough time waking up and kept asking for her suitcase and wanting to get down to walk, but after a couple of hours at home and a few popsicles later we had survived the worst.

Olivia's mouth was swollen for days and she was bumped at a Halloween party and split some of her stitches open and bled and bled again, but now you would never know it ever occurred! She has a perfect tiny smile and we are hopeful she keeps these tiny teeth inside her mouth until she is a big girl and loses them as she should. (She only has 8 teeth currently as is!) Too bad she is back to her old tricks of scaling walls and jumping off counters and wasn't old enough to learn from this lesson. It's Olivia Knievel!