Minus Two, Plus One.

The Little One has had seven teeth since August.  Four on top, three on bottom.  And for the last week she's been my little Klingon.  Normally, she's very much a mama's girl, but she will spend more than five minutes not clinging to my pant-legs when we are home.  This week, she's cried whenever I set her down and whenever she fell down.  She also woke up almost inconsolable in the middle of the night.  Since she's usually pretty easy going and falls back to sleep or giggles to herself after I crawl around the floor to retrieve her pacifier, having her cry at night was unusual.  This morning I discovered the culprit for her distress.  A new tooth!

Her sister wasn't so lucky. A couple weeks ago, my daughter tripped and split her lip on the edge of the bathtub.  As squirrelly as she often is, this time she just plain tripped.  Her swollen lip healed after a few days, then we noticed her teeth were changing color.  Instead of bright white like their neighbors, they were fading to gray.  We visited out dentist and he recommended a pediatric dentist.  That dentist hoped they could save the teeth by performing a baby root canal.  Cringe-worthy, yes! But something had to be done or an infection could damage her permanent teeth.  We scheduled the root canal, dreading it.  Who likes to go to the dentist themselves, let alone send their child into a white knuckle experience? (I white-knuckled it even through cleanings.)

Our appointment was Monday and we were met with bad news.  The X-rays showed that her teeth had deteriorated too far to be saved.  She is three years old and would have to have two of her front teeth pulled. Mom was close to tears.  The little trooper made it through the whole process without crying.  She now has the gap-toothed grin of a 1st grader and it doesn't seem to bother her at all.