Permanent Evidence of Tristan's Blunder
Just as we were preparing to head outside to finish up, Tristan and Wyatt were playing in my parents great room with a balloon. I had already warned them to stop their game because Oma and Opa's floor is a slate one and makes for a very hard landing. Did they listen to the wise counsel of their mother? Heck No! About 25 minutes later I heard THE wail. As all moms know, there is a certain cry that your child makes that lets you know that this 'boo-boo' is the real deal! This was one of those.
I came up the stairs to find Tristan holding his mouth and seeping blood. So I told him to calm down and we headed to the bathroom for some clean up time. Now, from experience, I know head and mouth injuries bleed a lot so I wasn't panicked when I saw all the blood on his clothes, mouth and hands. I carefully began to wipe him up and was asking him exactly what happened. Once I had most of the blood cleaned up, I had him open his mouth and that's when my stomach dropped!
To my shock and horror three of his four front teeth were no longer positioned straight up and down in his mouth but were seriously tilted backwards towards his throat! From what I could determine, Tristan and Wyatt were playing Head Butt the Balloon to Keep It In the Air and since Tristan was looking up, he didn't see the piano and he stumbled and smashed his three front teeth into it's surface. (As you can see in the picture there are three permanent indentations. Oh, and as an aside, this is the same piano that fell on my mother's foot last Christmas and broke all five of her toes.) I calmly told 'T' to hold this kleenex against his mouth and slowly walked out the door of the bathroom.
As soon as I was out of sight, I began my frantic search of Kevin. All I could think was we were at least THREE hours from the U.S. border, which made us THREE hours from anyone who would possibly accept our dental insurance for the kids. Once I found Kevin, I quickly relayed the story and in my panicked state said, "We have to leave, NOW!"
Kevin told me to calm down. There aren't too many tiimes when I lose it emotionally, when it comes to my children's injuries but this was one of the few. While Kevin took a peek at the damage, I made a phone call to our dentist. Since it was a Saturday, they were forwarding all their patients to Redi-Dent. I know what you're thinking, really Christine, you're going to trust your kids teeth to a place called "Redi-Dent". But there are times in your life when you don't have a lot of options and this was one of the them. They told us they needed to see Tristan, take x-rays and be sure his adult teeth and jaw were all okay. With a six hour drive to their office from my folks house, there was no way we were going to make it before they closed that afternoon so we set up an appointment for Sunday afternoon. With the appointment in place and no reason to race out of there, Kevin suggested we head outside to finish the landscaping. So we gave Tristan some ice and Ibuprofen and finished what we started.
Sunday afternoon, Tristan had x-rays taken and everything looked to be okay. So it was time to numb his mouth and literally PULL the teeth back into position. While Tristan has a tendancy to cry about a lot of little things, when it comes to serious injuries he is a champ and that day was no different. I found myself gripping Kevin's leg tightly as the dentist pulled Tristan's teeth forward again. (The snapping and popping were what had me freaked out and one look at Kevin let me know I wasn't the only one nervous about this process.) While they couldn't get them perfectly straight, they are a whole lot better than they were and it even appears as if they won't discolor. For all of that, we are truly grateful!
So, here's to one more drama for the Sall Seven Record Books. Hope you enjoyed our retelling of it!
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