Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Mason's New Grin

As the mother of a 1-year-old, when I count teeth I am generally counting to see if the number has increased, but last night this was not the case. It all started with a trip to Home Depot for family home evening. I will be the first person to admit I have an extremely busy and mischievious little boy who can get into his share of trouble, but on this outting he was being a good little boy and was just walking up and down the isles with me looking at all the fun stuff. We were waiting for someone to come help us in the bathroom section where there happened to be a vanity model set up on the floor of the isle. Mason did nothing more than touch it and the whole thing collapsed on top of him. The solid sink top came crashing down on his little mouth and needless to say his mouth began bleeding perfusely. This is not the first time Mason has cut his mouth and blood has gotten all over so I was pretty calm as I picked him up and tried to comfort him while I asked an employee, who saw the whole thing, where a bathroom was so I could clean him up and see what was wrong. I took him in the bathroom and pretty soon we had what looked like the sight of a massacre with blood all over his face, clothes, hands, and arms, and him smearing it all over my face and clothes. A poor little girl came walking in to use the bathroom and was quite terrified. I eventually got the bleeding under control and got us cleaned up the best I could before going with Scott to fill out an incident report. At first it looked like Mason's lip was just pretty mangled and bleeding, but after a little while Mason opened his mouth big enough that I could check his teeth and to my horror his top left tooth was hanging out of the socket. I FREAKED OUT!! This in turn made Mason get really upset and Scott had to calm us both down. We ended up taking Mason down to Riverside golfcourse where my parents happened to be golfing with our dentist, Chris Crawford. We got to take Mason in a golf cart out to the hole they were on. Mason had been whimpering and occasionally crying up until this point, but the golf cart ride seemed to make everything better. Chris informed us there is nothing we can do because it's just a baby tooth, but that there is no damage done either, because it's a baby tooth. Mason will just be missing his tooth for the next 6-7 years until his permanent tooth grows in. Other than that his lip and mouth will heal and he will be just fine. I am so grateful that Mason is okay medically because it could have been so much worse with all that heavy stuff falling on him, but in all honesty I am grieving the loss of his tooth. I cried all last night at the thought of my little boy's sweet grin never being the same. Every time I look at his fat lip, that for the time being covers the missing tooth, I feel myself tearing up. Mason has been a champ through it all. We took him home and gave him popcicles just as the doctor ordered. It took him all of 5 minutes to realize he was getting special treatment and he immediately tried getting several things he normally is not allowed. That's when I new he would be fine. He has been his happy wonderful self all day today. Home Depot has taken full responsibility for what happened and said that any model on their floor is meant to be handled and a 24 lb little boy should not have knocked it over. They are helping us make sure everything is okay with Mason and that no complications will arise from this. They have also offered Mason a very generous compensation for what he's been through. We will put the money in his bank account for when he is older and consider it a gift from the tooth fairy. Tonight we will leave his tooth out and hope the tooth fairy will bring him something fun for being such a brave boy.

Here is a closeup of his lip. The real mess is inside his mouth, which you can't see. I am pleasantly surprised that he doesn't have more swelling.

Here is his his tooth. Check out the huge root. Obviously with him being so young the root hadn't even begun to dissolve so the whole thing came out. OUCH!
Here is Maso-Magoo with his very sad Mama. This is one of the last pictures we have of his full grin. I sure will miss it, but I'm sure I'll love his new grin just as much. After all it's the boy behind the grin that makes it so great!

Friday, July 4, 2008

4th of July

We had a great 4th of July spent with the Murrays this year. We started the day with a picnic up at Big Springs, our favorite place to go run around and play. Later we did fireworks together, where Mason was introduced to sparklers which he had a hard time keeping his hands off. Then came the poppies. Once Mason got the hang of stomping on them, the real fun began. He was hilarious!! All of us, adults and kids, gathered around and watched Mason stomping and laughing and stomping and laughing. I tried to get a video after he'd been doing it a while. It doesn't capture it during it's peak, but you get the idea. Most importantly Mason got to play with his cousin Kayla and all the Murray kiddos.