I Should Have Known

Have you ever had one of those "perfect mom" moments when, after having lived through a certain situation, you look back and say, "I should have known better"? (Small editor's note: Does that question mark seem out of place to you? I have always been taught to put ALL punctuation inside quote marks, but it doesn't seem to fit there. Unfortunately, I am too lazy right now to go look it up. So if you know the answer, please let me know! Anyway...) That happened to me yesterday. Here's the story.

Two days ago Olivia came home from school in tears, telling me her tooth hurt. She said she went to the nurse twice, but when nothing was seen, she was sent back to class. She said, "Mom, it really hurts." OK, here was my first clue that something was up. Now don't get me wrong; I love all my children. But certain of them, who shall remain nameless, tend to exaggerate their ailments. And like a good mother, I usually ignore them. But that has generally not been the case with Olivia. It has been my experience, as I really look back and analyze it, that whenever Olivia says something really hurts, it usually does. But I looked in her mouth and didn't see anything amiss. So I gave her some ibuprofen and sent her to gymnastics.

After gymnastics, and more pain, she showed me her tooth again. Aha, we discovered a filling that had fallen out. Of course by this time it is evening and we can't do anything until the next morning. She had a rough night, with a few more doses of ibuprofen before making it to the dentist. After a less than stellar experience with a dentist (who is on the way out the door, I am afraid), we discovered that she not only had lost a filling, but half her tooth as well. She had been in a great deal of pain and actually needed a crown on her whole little baby tooth (which also had developed an infection in it, by the way) to fix it. ARGH!! Poor little thing. Looking back I wish I would have taken her more seriously at the first sign of trouble and gotten her in. Thanks to my fabulous mothering skills, she had to wait almost 24 hours for relief from a really bad situation. And I have to say, even then she handled it remarkably well, with very little complaining.

So after her dentist office experience, I kept her out of school for the day and she got to join me instead for a hair cut, which she has been asking for for a while now. Even though she isn't crazy about the crown, I think (and hope) the hair cut will make up some of the difference.