"Hurt"

This past weekend should have been pretty chill... Hayley playing with friends, an outing to get Jackson's haircut, Sunday dinner at my mom's. I guess Jackson decided to spice things up a bit for us, and nearly give me a heart attack in the process.

In all his post-haircut cuteness on Saturday, he was bringing all his blankies and stuffies from his crib to my room one by one, climbing up on the bed, depositing them in the pile he was making, and then safely sliding down the side of the bed to land on his feet. He was on about round five of this game when I heard the CLUNK. Yes, that one, the one that no mother ever wants to hear. Yep, you guessed it, fell off the bed. Face first. I snatch him up, and notice two things. One, he's crying. Good sign. Two, he already has a mouthful of blood. Bad, bad sign.

I get him over to the changing table and mop some of the blood out of his mouth, and shudder as I realize what it is that is bleeding so much: he's totally ripped his frenulum. What is that you ask? It's the piece of tissue that connects the upper gum above your teeth to the upper lip. Why would I know what that is called? Because not two months ago our Pediatric Dentist told me that Jackson's is very low, and to be careful because it will rip and bleed. NO FREAKING KIDDING.

So I hold him, and try to keep him from swallowing too much blood, and try not to cry myself. I remind myself that mouth wounds bleed a lot, and that even if the scar for this one is nasty, it's inside his mouth when no one can see it. I think about how much I do not want to hold my two-year-old down while he gets stitches IN HIS MOUTH, especially since I am already a little spent from holding him down to get his hair cut earlier that day. And then I decide to call and get a second opinion before taking him in anywhere.

I call my mom and step-dad to explain the situation and they say that they will stop by. While we are waiting, Jackson has calmed down, and is acting fairly normal. He's playing quietly and his mouth seems to have stopped bleeding. At this point I decide to call the dentist, since he will be familiar with the injury and will have possibly dealt with it before. I was very impressed when he called back within five minutes of my leaving a message on the emergency line, and even more impressed when he actually discussed the injury with me since it seems that the only thing that I ever get from the doctor's office emergency line is, "Well, we can't really tell you anything on the phone, you better just bring them in." Anyway, so the pediatric dentist said that it is a very common injury, and if it is done bleeding and the child is acting fine, there's really nothing they would do for it anyway. They don't usually stitch it, and sometimes the frenulum grows back, and sometimes it doesn't, which is fine, because it doesn't really serve a purpose.

I am ridiculously relieved, call my mom and step-dad and tell them not to worry about coming, give Jackson some Tylenol for good measure, and move on with our day. Jackson has a puffy upper lip, and has walked around the last few days poking at it gingerly and saying "hurt" but he really seems fine. His mouth is healing, but I don't know if it will ever be the same as it was. At least I'll have a good story for him when he is older and asks why he has a big dangly, gangly piece of yuck at the front of the inside of his mouth.

So glad that our little boy is okay. The scary part is, with how much of a little monkey he is, I'm sure this is just practice for the years to come. If you are curious, and you have a strong stomach, the injury looked like this. Scroll down to the fourth picture. It still gives me the heebie-jeebies.