a traumatic week

Yes, that it a shiner you see on Miss Olivia. More on that later.

The side effects of toddler hood are starting to be felt in our house. This became apparent after the traumatic week Olivia had to deal with. It all began with her very first visit to the dentist. A wonderful pediatric dentist was recommended to us and they suggested that Olivia come in for her first check-up. Not much typically happens on the first visit other than the doctor looking at her teeth to make sure all is well. When he asked if I had any questions I brought up the fact that one of her bottom teeth (next to the front two teeth) had yet to come in. This set of teeth typically come in at 7 months, and while one of them had come in on time the other one had yet to pop through. He thought that was odd and wanted to take a further look.

He started by just looking in her mouth. Obviously she was not too pleased to have a dental tool coming at her so it took a few of us to hold her down. I was trying to get her to relax but the doctor said not to worry about it, he deals with this type of thing every day. Well duh...he is a pediatric dentist! After checking things out he thought that we better take an X-ray to see what was going on with that tooth. Here I thought the initial exam was rough on Olivia...the X-ray seemed like torture. I laid back in the dentist chair with Olivia lying on me. I had to hold her arms down while they put the lead blanket over both of us. One nurse held her head still while another put something in her mouth. A third nurse positioned the x-ray machine and they took the shot. It took two tries because Olivia was thrashing around so much. Poor thing was scared out of her mind...I felt so bad! She cried harder than ever before! Luckily it was over in a flash. The nurse gave her a tooth bush and she was a happy girl!

So to sum up this very long story...Olivia has two teeth that are fused together. The tooth next to her bottom teeth is fused with the canine tooth. Since the canine teeth come in much later it is keeping the other tooth from coming through. So they will come in together as one tooth. The doctor said this is quite common and once the teeth come in it will look like two teeth. There is nothing that can be done for a many years, because we have to wait for those baby teeth to fall out. I guess there is a possibility it will not fall out on it's own and may need to be pulled (god I hope not!) And most likely her permanent teeth will come in just fine. The doctor will continue to keep an eye on it, but otherwise her first dental visit was a success! It was just a little more than I had bargained for. Oh well...just another thing that makes our Olivia so very special! One good sign is that Olivia loves to brush her teeth. So much so that she does not like me doing it...she would rather do it herself.

After our exhausting day at the dentist we concluded the evening with a bloody nose! While having dinner at my Mom's, like we do every Monday night, Olivia trips over her Nana's foot and falls face first on the hard wood floor! It was awful! She immediately went into one of those cries that starts with them holding their breath for 10 seconds before wailing, and then the blood started to flow. Needless to say I was freaked out of my mind! It was the first time my sweet baby had bled so naturally I panicked! I think I was scared more than she was. Fortunately we were able to get the blood to stop flowing fairly quickly and the tears ceased soon afterwards.

Well it didn't end there. Our week of trauma continued with me accidental letting a glass door close on Olivia's fingers. I could have died! We were leaving the baby sitter's house and I did not realize that Olivia had her hand in the door. The baby sitter called to me and as I turned around the door closed on her little hand. It pinched a few of her fingers pretty hard, causing her to go into another breathless cry! But my tough little monkey got over it within minutes! There is a bruise on one of her fingers as evidence of my irresponsibility! The guilt is still lingering on that one!

OK, so you would think that would be enough for one week. Well no...it culminated with her shiner on Thursday! Unfortunately we do not know how to explain that one, which is not something we are proud of. While reading books in her room she suddenly burst into tears. We noticed that she had a small cut on the side of her eye, but it wasn't until the next day that we noticed the enormous bruise on her eyelid! Olivia spends a lot of time reading in her room without us around. She is very good and does not require constant supervision. We think we know what happened but aren't 100% sure. It was just a case of "accidents happen" and we are grateful that her eye was not more seriously hurt!

I am relieved to say that this week is over now. We are going to wake up on Monday morning, start fresh and try to avoid as many accidents as possible! I know that this stuff is more likely to happen now that Olivia is a active toddler, I guess I was just not fully prepared. This week helped me to become more aware and be more prepared for these types of accidents in the future. I must say that Olivia was a trooper through it all. She is such a strong, tough little girl. I am proud of her for hanging in there during such a traumatic week!

I have much more to update everyone on, but I will save it for another post. This one went on a tad bit longer than I expected. I can tell you that Olivia is developing so fast! She has tons of new words and new tricks! I will share them with you very soon. Until then, keep your fingers crossed for an "accident free" week!