Bricks are not for eating.

So we spent a lovely 6+ hours in not one, but TWO ER's on Easter Sunday.

My friend Shannon & her daughter had arrived at our house and all four kids were roughhousing in the living room. They got too close to the fireplace and next thing I hear "THWAP!" (yep, just like that) and Caitlin started screaming.

I ran to her and saw that she was holding her mouth. With blood pouring from between her fingers.

Brian got her into the bathroom and spitting blood into the sink, and I glimpsed her teeth in the mirror. My poor baby's front teeth were broken.

So Shannon stayed with the kids and the roasting turkey, and off we went to the nearest ER. Brian sat in the back with Catey and I managed to drive without speeding.

Got to the first ER and by then the bleeding had stopped. They checked to be sure she didn't need any stitches (punctured her lip, thankfully, not a big cut) and gave her some Motrin for the pain, and sent us up to Children's Hospital where there's an on-call dentist. Trip to the first ER, just over an hour and a half.

We had been told that they'd have the on-call dentist there & waiting for us when we got there. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. Nothing is ever that easy when it comes to ER's. We had to do the whole check-in/triage thing, and they sent in a regular pediatrician. FINALLY, they CALL the dentist, who must live over an hour away. After waiting for two hours she finally arrived. I swear she was about 16 years old.

She did a lot of tapping & poking to make sure no other teeth were damaged, then finally put some white composite filling on the two teeth that were broken. The third tooth that was damaged was only knocked looser and was a baby tooth, so we're just going to let that one fall out.

We went to a follow-up dentist on Monday, and they did x-rays. The two teeth that were broken were permanent teeth, so we were pretty concerned. PRAISE GOD!!! There's no additional damage to the roots of her teeth, and the roots are still forming so they should keep on keeping on. YAY!!! Just because my child was BORN in Oklahoma doesn't mean she needs to look like a gap-toothed Oklahoman. She'll still need braces later on down the line, but we knew that before all of this happened.

We were so blessed and lucky in ALL of this. Her permanent teeth were only half grown in. If they had been completely grown in it's likely that they would have been broken all the way up into the gums. The baby tooth was already loose, so there shouldn't be any damage to the permanent tooth that's forming behind it.

The part that I had (and still have nightmares about) the hardest time with is the "couldabeens" in the whole situation. If she had hit her head instead of her teeth she could have cracked her skull, or worse. If she had hit her chin and forced her head back she could have broken her neck. If she had been just a few inches over to the left and hit her eye she could have been blinded. Teeth are easily fixable. Her life is irreplaceable. It was so hard to NOT lose it in front of her when the reality of what COULD have happened hit me.

Needless to say, at bedtime that night I brought the girls into the living room and sat them down by the hearth to make it clear what COULD have happened (hopefully without scaring them TOO much) and try to get through to them, yet again, why it's so dangerous to play rough right next to the fireplace. Hopefully it worked.








The hearth where she whacked herself. You can see how close she was to the corner.
Those white spots aren't just part of the brick. It's pulverized tooth.

The left was completely a powder, not even a grit. The right was a chip. The rest of the pulverized teeth ended up in the sink.