Natalie's Tooth!

Well, we've had quite the past few months with medical issues... very different from the past 5 years in which we had hardly anything ever! At our church, they flash your family's number up on the screen if they need you during the service. We saw ours so I went downstairs--actually, last Sunday Blake had a major diaper blowout so they'd called me for that so I was wondering what had happened this time. Apparently, Natalie was playing in her class and had fallen and hurt her mouth. Her teacher said she'd bit her lip but when I looked at her, I saw that her tooth was totally jammed back and up into her gum! This picture doesn't really show it very well but when you looked straight at her, you couldn't see that tooth at all, it was way up into the gum. Our pediatric dentist actually goes to our church but he wasn't there this week. We talked with him on the phone that afternoon and then went in Monday morning. As we thought would happen, they had to take out her tooth. She did a great job and everyone said she was a real trooper. They took an x-ray to check, gave her laughing gas, numbed it up, and then pulled it out! She got to keep the tooth (and her little laughing gas mask that she won't let go of). It was pretty rough for a few hours afterwards, especially at the beginning as it was bleeding a lot--the drive home consisted of lots of crying and me continually reaching back to trade out new napkins/pieces of gauze for the blood soaked ones. Yuck. Evan slept through it all but Blake just sat there watching at the whole thing in shock, I think. :) We made a bed on the couch and she watched some movies and took a nap. Daddy came home early from classes--with pudding, applesauce, jello and juice. What a good Daddy. He and Natalie have a really sweet special bond and he was very good at taking care of her. By dinner, she ate a plateful of food and seemed like she was back to her normal self already. The dentist said she'd feel a lot better with the tooth out and I guess he was right. And this is today... she slept all night, woke up bright and cheery and has been bouncing around all morning, eating and drinking just fine! . So now she'll have no tooth for the next couple years in all her pictures but I think she'll handle it just fine. She's still beautiful to us! :)