All I want for Christmas....

...is my two front teeth, OK just one. Or so Chloe would say if she knew what was really going on.

OK, I'll explain.

Last Sunday night, Chloe didn't sleep well. She woke up crabby, complained a little that her lip and nose hurt, but was otherwise normal. Monday night she was up 3 or 4 times crying and couldn't get comfortable. Tuesday morning started with more complaints of "my lip and nose hurt", but now her upper lip and the inside of her top lip were a little swollen. I still wasn't sure what to make of it. So we went through a few days of Chloe being grumpy, over-tired, laying around, being clingy, and just not her self. And more not sleeping. Wednesday we went to art class at 9:30am. At some point a little boy backed into Chloe and his back touched her mouth area. She screamed and cried for 5 minutes over it, all the while crying that her lip hurt. And it was still a little swollen. After we got home, Chloe curled up on the couch and fell asleep -- so unlike her. I knew something was wrong. I called the dentist and he said he could get her in at 2pm. I called Sonny at work and had him come home early to stay with Cassie. The dentist did x-rays and didn't really see anything, but said that one of her front top teeth didn't look right in surgery and he almost pulled it then but thought it would be OK. This is a tooth that was filled in April. He sent us home with antibiotics, instructions to call him on Friday, and with another appointment for the following Wednesday. Chloe didn't improve and her lip started to swell a tiny bit more. We canceled all our activities for the week and just hung out on the couch watching TV, mixed in with me walking around holding Chloe. We did go to speech on Friday morning at 7:30am, and Chloe really wasn't herself. When we got home, I called the dentist. He decided Chloe needed a CT scan to see what was going on. He called the oral surgeon who does the CT dental scans and he was working at an office an hour from here. Chloe would need to be sedated for the CT scan, but Chloe had already had milk, so the surgeon would not do the scan. So our dentist said to be at his office at 12:30pm and he would sedate Chloe and do full x-rays and see what he could see since he was worried about waiting until Monday. I had to literally take a banana away from Chloe as the Dr. was telling me this because she couldn't have anything else to eat or drink. That made an unhappy girl even more unhappy. Again, I had to call Sonny home but this time to go with me and the girls since I had no idea what to expect.

After Chloe was finally in la-la land, the fun began. More x-rays, then still more x-rays, lots of poking, pulling surgery x-rays, poking more, then drilling in the front tooth under where the swelling was - the same tooth that was questionable from surgery, but drilling didn't really prove anything either. Then he said "I think I need to pull it." I said "Can you do it now?" and he said "yes." By the way, Chloe has been moaning in pain and crying since the drilling started. She had already had two meds to sedate her, stuff to numb her gums and lips, and was getting nitrous-oxide the whole time, and had two shots of Novocaine, and was still in pain. It was very tough to watch them drilling into my child's tooth while she's screaming and I'm saying "it's OK, mommy's here", all the while I'm crying inside for her. All I can say is it sucked. After another two shots of Novocaine and he pulled the tooth. Then he said "There is puss." Music to my ears. I've never been so excited to see puss. The tooth was abscessed but in the very early stages and didn't really show any signs outward yet. We took a shot by pulling the tooth, and it paid off.

So Chloe is missing her top right front tooth. There will be lots of toothless pictures in my baby's future but that doesn't matter because she's adorable with or without teeth. Chloe fell asleep on the way home and slept on the couch for about 3 hours after we got home. When she woke up she told me "the doctor bit me." So cute. :) Her Dr called around 8pm to check on her and by then she was doing much better.

Today my baby girl is back to her self. It's so nice to see her smiling and playing again. It's been a long week.