Thomas the Toothless

I think it's no small thing that children come into this world helpless and clumsy and fearless, and still survive to adulthood. Certainly, God must send some to earth wrapped with a little extra "bounce". And some have a little more "bounce" than others. Saturday morning, Thomas could have used a little extra.

The boys were downstairs. There had been a bit of a fuss when Thomas belly-slid down. Samuel and Anthony guarded the bottom of the steps with their plastic swords and outstretched bodies--"No! He can't come down here! He'll wreck our fort!" Yes, they had a pretty nice fort made out of cushions, and yes, Thomas might wreck it, but I had been keeping him "out" of their play all morning. He had been wanting down the stairs and I was giving in. With exaggerated confidence, I gathered some toys for Thomas to be distracted with and assured the boys that he would be happy. Play on.

I wish now I could go back and change that. The cleaning I wanted to get done could most definitely have waited.

It wasn't much after that when, even above the vacuum cleaner, we heard Josh yelling "Mom! Mom!"
Hubby hit the switch on the vacuum and we hurried down the stairs. Josh was carrying Thomas who was wailing and bleeding from his mouth. Hubby took Thomas and I quickly grabbed a dishcloth, ran it under cold water and began blotting and wiping and looking to see where the blood was coming from. I wasn't sure if what I thought I was seeing was really what I was seeing. It was. I looked up at Hubby and said, "One of his front teeth is gone!" Thomas didn't cry for long and snuggled right in on Hubby's shoulder. The other boys were rambling on, telling us how they didn't do anything, how Thomas just climbed up by himself and fell down onto the coffee table. I went downstairs for a little further inspection into their story. It appeared to be just as they said.

A cushion was propped up against the couch, angled down like a slide that ended at the base of the coffee table in front of it. Apparantly, Thomas got to the top of the cushion, sat down as if to slide, but instead, fell forward onto the table. And right there on the floor was his tooth. The whole thing.

I called the emergency room. Thomas was still snuggled in with Hubby. I explained to the doctor what had happened. He assured me that as long as the bleeding was controlled and there didn't appear to be other injuries, there probably was nothing to be done or to worry about. Thomas was just now one tooth less.

Uff-da.

But we still had to tell our daughter, Hannah, his mom. She was already almost home when I called her-- and she took it way better than I thought she would. Better than I had received the news when the same thing happened twenty years earlier to our daughter Erin, Thomas's aunt and Hannah's twin sister. She, too, had fallen forward on a real slide outside at her Grandparents' while we were gone, and damaged her front tooth. We took her to the emergency room and, like Thomas, there was nothing to be done or worry about. Erin's tooth remained in tact in her mouth, but changed color. We called it her "brown tooth".

Guess there'll be this "special story" to be shared between them about what happened at their grandparents' when they were little, and why in all those pictures their tooth was gone/damaged.

That doesn't make me feel better.

We love you Thomas. And you still look sweet and handsome even without that tooth. :o)