Tuesday, June 03, 2008

My, What Big Teeth You Have

Today was another trying day.

Early this afternoon, my whiny child started signing “milk” and getting, well, progressively more and more whiny. I sat down to nurse him and he just started SCREAMING. For a minute or two I held onto him, shhh-ed him, and tried to calm him down. Nothing worked and he continued SCREAMING. This act gave me a great view into his tiny baby mouth. So, as he was SCREAMING, I was looking to see if any new teeth were ready to pop through because, THERE MUST BE SOMETHING MAKING HIM SCREAM LIKE HE IS. As I was scanning his gums, I noticed that right behind his two front teeth there was a hard, white mass. Holy shit… my son has a rogue tooth growing behind his front teeth. I SCREAMED for Josh because there was no way I could deal with the gnarly thing on my own.

Josh came up and surveyed the situation. He thought it was a tooth, but by that time I had decided that it was much too big to be a tooth and that somehow Jude must have injured the roof of his mouth and was now suffering from some horrible abscess. This made tons of sense to me because nipples are sharp and pointy, and that kid always has a nipple in his mouth.

As I rushed around looking for my phone, looking up the dentist’s number, calling the dentist and leaving a frantic message with his secretary, Josh grabbed a flashlight and attempted to get a better look at the mass. (All the while, Jude was SCREAMING. Did I mention that yet?) As soon as I hung up with the dentist’s office, Josh announced that he didn’t think it was a tooth or a horrible abscess resulting from roof of the mouth trauma. It was his belief that Jude had a cat’s nail wedged behind his teeth.

Huh? What? Are you fucking serious?

Okay. We have three adorable cats. Our cats have all their claws because to declaw them would be inhumane and horrible and we would certainly be sent to hell if we allowed such an atrocity to be committed. So, our cats have their claws, and cats’ claws shed their outer layer as they scratch things like the carpet or the couch or the box spring of the bed you’re still paying on. Josh and I try (sometimes unsuccessfully) to keep a tidy house. We vacuum or use the dustbuster whenever we see something that needs vacuumed or dustbusted. I guess we missed something.

The poor kid had a cat’s nail stuck behind his front teeth.

Josh was able to remove the nail after just a minute or two of adept finger work. There was no blood, and Josh doesn’t think it was embedded in the gum tissue at all, but Christ. Am I the worst mother in the world or what?

Maybe I’m just the worst housekeeper in the world.

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