Jumping Monkeys

It was a busy morning at my house this morning. It all started last night when the kids decided to jump like monkeys on my bed. That's the latest thing with them. They pull the comforter off my bed and pretend it's a giant trampoline. Well, as the old saying goes, it's all fun and games until someone gets a tooth knocked loose, and that's exactly what happened.

I had my back turned to the event because I was in the bathroom pre-pasting everyone's toothbrushes. Our usual bedtime routine is that all the kids wash-up at the sink, wash their hands, brush their teeth (I help the twins) and wash their face. We have one kiddie stool set-up in front of the sink, so everyone basically stands in assembly line to wash up.

I could hear the kids jumping and laughing while I was in the bathroom and just thinking "All I have to do now is help them wash up, and then I can finally put them to sleep. Yeah!" when I heard what sounded like two coconuts crashing together. I turned around and came back to find Bigger Twin (the older twin) running away from the scene while the Littlest Twin (the younger one) was bleeding from her mouth. My son freaked out and said, "Call 911!!" and started crying. He was not going to be much of a help from this point, and the husband, as usual, had locked himself in the basement to pay bills and follow up on the after hour e-mails from work (he never stops working).

So Littlest Twin is spewing blood from her mouth while the other two kids are freaking out in the corner of the room. I was trying to control the bleeding with a washcloth while trying to find out exactly what happened and where in her mouth the blood was coming from. I had a feeling her chin came crashing down on top of her sister's head (hence that coconut crashing sound) but I didn't know exactly what got damaged inside her mouth. Did she bite her tongue, her lip? I took her to the sink so she could rinse out her mouth, and finally I saw that the blood was actually coming from the gum line around her lower front teeth.

I immediately called her pediatrician, who asked me to check if the teeth were loose. Littlest Twin shrieked when I touched her teeth, but they appeared not to move when I tried to wiggle them. The doctor said to give her Motrin and have her examined by the dentist tomorrow.

So this morning, after I dropped my son off at pre-school, we headed to our dentist, who is an absolute angel. She's so good with kids. The receptionist had to laugh as she was writing up the reason for the visit. She said, "This reminds me of that nursery rhyme, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, except it's three little monkeys." After the dentist checked her teeth and took an x-ray, we found out her lower front teeth ARE loose, but will probably become more resilient over the next few weeks as her gums heal and tigten up again. She's allowed only soft foods for the next two weeks, and this means no more cookies for her. She can't bite anything with her front teeth, anything she needs to eat has to be soft and broken down into pieces so she can pick it up with her hands or a spoon and push it to the back of her mouth to chew.

When we came home, she didn't quite understand this and was begging for a brownie. She was hungry, and I didn't realize this at the time, but this morning she refused to eat her waffle at breakfast, and now I know it was because she couldn't bite into it. I had planned on giving her some fried eggs and buttered toast and making small bites out of it to feed her, but she really didn't want to wait that long. I figured I'd let her see for herself and gave her a brownie while I cooked the eggs for the twins' lunch. Once she had the brownie in her hands, she hesitated to bite it (thank goodness for natural defense mechanisms). While her sister was happily munching away at the brownies, Littlest Twin looked up at me and said, "I don't have teeth." I felt sorry for her, and since the brownie was soft enough to chew on her back teeth, I broke it down into tiny pieces for her so she could pick them up and eat them. Kind of like what you would do for a 9-month old. However, I'm glad her instincts are helping her take precautions against putting pressure on those teeth, the area around them has turned purple and looks pretty scary, but she'll be better soon. The doctor said it would be nice if she could eat a popsicle, but she has an aversion to cold foods other than ice cream. She's very stubborn.

Well, that's it for the drama in my life for now. Just when I think I can relax and everything is finished for the day, another disaster strikes. But I am going to start implementing a new rule in the house tonight. No more monkeys jumping on the bed! Seriously, she's very lucky. Judging from the amount of trauma dealt to her teeth, she's lucky she didn't bite down on her tongue. That would have most definitely warranted a call to 911, which I've learned through prior experience, is like trying to communicate with a hamster if you're on Vonage.