Teeth.

My worst fear came true this week-- that's an exaggeration, it's not really my "worst" fear, but it is one that I have talked about and hoped and wished not to happen.  What is it?  Something happening to Leeland's teeth.

I remember running into another Mom a couple months ago at a football game, and Leeland was about the same age as her youngest son and they ran around and played so we were chatting.  She asked if I had other children and I told her we were expecting (at the time not knowing it was a boy yet) and she told me that she had 3 sons.  She followed that with, "if you end up having more boys, there's a support group for Mom's like us."  I giggled and said something about how from all the stories I have heard about my husband and his brothers that we needed to make sure we have good medical insurance.  And she said, "no, you need good dental insurance," and followed with a story about a freak accident with her youngest son and his tooth having to be pulled.  Mind you, he was only about 16 months old at the time. 

That has been my fear.  In all actuality, we of course get 2 sets of teeth in our lifetime so it's technically not that big of a deal, but knowing that Leeland may have a jacked up tooth for at least 7 years before his permanent teeth come in is really scary to me.  

So anyways, Leeland chipped one of his front teeth this week.  Thankfully it's a small chip so there wasn't any sort of root or extreme damage causing us to rush off to the dentist office, but it's a chip in his tooth none the less.  Daniel says that it is small enough that no one would notice if I didn't point it out, but I know it's there! The way it's placed in the corner of his front tooth makes his tooth just look, not straight across at the bottom (if that makes sense).

He bonked his mouth on the side of the bath tub the other night.  He cried and I consoled him and remember checking his lips and glancing at his mouth to make sure he wasn't bleeding.  (He has been known to get a bloody lip in falls from now and then).  I don't recall looking at any of his teeth (dumb me) and he stopped crying after about a minute so I assumed he wasn't hurt too bad.  The next morning, we were sitting on the couch enjoying our cheerios together-- and Leeland likes to take very large fist fulls of cheerios and put them in his mouth.  When he did, I noticed his tooth didn't look right and thought for whatever reason there was cheerios stuck in his tooth.  But it wasn't cheerios-- it was the chipped tooth. I beat myself up about it most of the day because it took me to the next day to notice and I felt horrible about being a "bad mom."  And then I just got sad for him that his teeth are perfect anymore.  :(