The Trauma and Drama of Being a Momma

I'm going to forewarn you: this is not a pretty story. If you have a weak stomach you may want to pass on this post.

I worry. Anyone who knows me is well aware of this. However, I like to think that I do a pretty good job of putting this worry on the back burner when a "situation" occurs.

I find out last night that this is not the case.

After we were finished with dinner Louie went to wash his hands. When he came back, I'm not sure if he was singing or whatever, but something made Kevin ask Louie to come over and let him see in his mouth. I just figured that he had a piece of food stuck in his teeth or something.

Nope. Lou has two teeth growing behind his two front teeth on the bottom row. Not right behind, like they're going to push the other ones out, they are starting themselves a new row. Like a shark. And so when I looked at it I went with it, like it was cool, like a shark. All the while my stomach was flipping over and I was working really hard not to make a grossed out face. There was his jaw showing in between the two sets of teeth! It just didn't seem right.

Kevin asked how long they had been there, since the beginning of the school year? Uh, like 14 days, Lou says. Kids are no help when it comes to these matters. They were pretty much out of his jaw, so unless teeth are like mushrooms, they had been there for a while.

What does one do in a situation like this? I had never heard of such things. I only knew that if your new teeth came in crooked that you got braces. What do you do when two renegades try to take on the rest of the mouth? Louie said it didn't hurt him, and so we didn't think much more about it at that moment.

I was cleaning up the kitchen and Kevin was hanging out nearby with Meredith when we heard a scream followed by crying that we knew came from Lou. We had gotten home late the night before and it had the tone of a very tired boy so for the first few minutes (seconds?) we didn't think much of it. But the screaming got worse and so I dropped the dish rag and went out to the living room.

Louie was holding his nose while Ben and Charlie were still wrestling on the ground. They were playing football and those two didn't believe the play was over yet. I moved Lou's hand away and large droplets of blood came out. I mean large. Then came the blood pouring out of his mouth. I was trying to find out if he had done something in both his mouth and nose--could his two new teeth busted through the roof of his mouth?? More screams. More blood and those two rascals on the floor wouldn't stop wrestling around at our feet! I sent them up to their room and had Kevin get a wet towel and a towel with ice around it.

The more blood Louie saw the more he freaked out and the more blood there was on the carpet. I had him walk into the bathroom and I wonder if that was a mistake: bright lights on a white porcelain counter top, a great way to exaggerate the amount of blood there is. He kept saying that he couldn't breath and I thought I was going to get sick. I had Kevin look up on the internet what to do for a bloody nose. I thought I had heard that you're not supposed to tilt their heads back anymore, so I wanted to be sure that we did it the right way. Or at least did something.

I don't know if it was the fear that there was something really wrong, or just all the blood but I was feel really whoozy. I had Kevin come in to take over in the bathroom and I went to sit down at the computer to take some deep breaths and try to find out how to take care of the bloody nose. (We figured out that all the blood in the mouth was coming down his throat from his nose, if that's a positive aspect of the situation.) I got chills and my stomach was flip-flopping and Meredith was crying at my feet while I looked up information on what to do.

Once I found something that sounded the most credible I tried to explain the procedure to Kevin and tragedy was averted. Not by me and my astounding skills on the internet, but by a calm father who let the blood gush slow down and allowed his boy to calm down all the while I was still frazzled.

What am I going to do when something like this happens and Kevin's not home to save the day?? I am hoping that I have some sort of "reserves" stored up where I'm not going to overreact to blood and my kid screaming. Maybe I'll be able to stay calm and calm everyone else down. That's possible, right?

P.S. Kevin took pictures of the aftermath in the bathroom so I could post it on here, but I decided to keep that little gem just for the family.