His teeth are where?

Warning: This blog may not be for the queasy.

You may have noticed that BB has his front teeth in the "you don't know me shirt" picture from my first post, yet they are missing in his 3.5 picture with BA. Well, there is a story behind that, as there usually is a story when teeth go missing.

On our September trip to Texas, we stayed at my moms. One night the kids were up late and playing in her living room. All of the sudden we heard a screaming cry that sent chills down my spine. I was outside at the time so I ran in. At first I did not see anything wrong, then a gush of blood began to flow from my baby boy's mouth. It was truly terrifying. I told myself for a split second that mouth injuries bleed more and not to worry until upon further investigation, between our discussions about going to the hospital or now and crying my eyes out, we noticed that 3 of his front teeth were missing. That sealed the deal, we would be heading to the hospital NOW. My husband looked for the teeth at the site of the injury in the living room and found nothing.

So we headed for the nearest children's hospital and waited. Once inside they x-rayed his mouth and stomach looking for the teeth. No luck. They called in a pediatric oral surgeon to do a high level x-ray of his mouth to look for fractures and the teeth. That is when they found them. They had been shoved so far up into his gums they were under his nose. OUCH!!!

Now that they knew where the teeth were, within ten minutes, they put him to sleep and surgically removed the two front teeth. The third tooth we thought was missing had just been slightly pushed up and was hidden by swollen bloody gums. They left that one because it would come back down eventually, which it did I am happy to say.

With a sleepy 3 year old, we headed back to mom's house after 8 hours at the hospital. That is when we pieced together what had happened the best that we could since no adult had seen what actually took place.

The kids were running around and jumping from an antique chair toward a space between the chair and a brick fireplace hearth that is about 1.5 feet high. In an apparent over zealous jump, BB missed his footing, went forward and came down on the top of the brick hearth with his chin. His bottom lip went between his upper and lower front teeth and was cut. The upward force pushed his teeth up into his gums and under his nose. The teeth blocked the space for a few seconds that is why there was a delay is the gush of blood.

For the next few weeks, he looked like Jay Leno. The blow to his chin on the brick caused severe swelling. Not to mention the bruising. I have a photo journal of day by day progress of the bruising. From blue, to purple, to pink, to green, then finally yellow. The pictures above were taken the morning after the accident.

Gruesome, I know, but that is the story of the missing teeth.