Monday, January 31, 2011

What a Way to Start a New Year.....*plus*...How We Got Rid of the Paci

For Christmas, we asked my dad to build us a bench along two of our walls in our dining room.  Our dining room isn't very big, so we knew that this would maximize our space and make the room look larger.  I'm going to do a whole post on the before and after later.  He did a fantastic job and it really looks so good. 

On December 30, Matt grilled us some steaks to eat for dinner and we were looking forward to a nice relaxing evening after all the craziness of the holidays.  Lorelai got through with dinner a little before us and begged and begged to get down.  We let her and she climbed on the bench with us.  Just as I was telling her to sit on her hiney, she slipped and hit her mouth on the corner of the table.  She immediately started crying (actual crying is rare for her - it's usually just a whine).  Matt grabbed her and held her.  And then I noticed the blood.  Everywhere.

I scooped her up from Matt and took her to the bathroom to rinse out her mouth, let her play (and get distracted in the water), and survey the damage.  The inside of her lip was bleeding pretty good, but I got it to slow down very quickly.  But I still noticed blood everywhere.  But it wasn't coming from the inside of her mouth.  That's when I noticed that it was coming from right underneath her lip on the outside of her mouth.

The swollen inside (if you peeled it back any more, it was waaaaay worse.  Think gaping whole, flap of skin, and blood.  I didn't take a picture of that part.)

The outside.  Not big, but enough to worry about!
This is when I really started to panic.  I realized - her teeth must have gone all the way through!  I panicked and called Mrs. Becky.  She said that she really thought that we should go get it checked out, so we headed to YPAC.  They open at 6, we got there at 6:15, and they were PACKED.  There were probably 20 people ahead of us in line.

Finally we got back to see the doctor.  He looked at her lip and teeth and told us that he could give her stitches, but that it would probably be more trauma than it was worth.  He also said he could clean it with some heavy duty stuff, but that soap and water at home would be just as effective and not nearly as traumatic. 

When we were waiting to see him, I gave LL her paci as it was already past her bed time.  When she sucked on it, it made her lip start bleeding, so I took it back.  While we were back with the doctor, I asked him about the whole paci thing and explained to him that we had planned to get rid of it the following weekend, anyway.  He said to just throw them out (since she couldn't use them with her lip anyway) and be done with them

I was sooo hesitant, but we did it!  For 2 days she didn't even ask for them!  I think that her lip was just so swollen and hurting that she didn't even think about it.  She has asked for one a hand full of times, but we just tell her that they're "all gone" and she doesn't even seem to mind!

It has created a whole new set of night-time issues, but that's a whole other post.  :)  I have been SO IMPRESSED with her and how little of an issue this has been!  Around Christmas she had started asking for it soooo much so I was really worried about this whole transition, but it was REALLY easy!  She's been paci free for a month now!  She still has a little scar on the outside of her mouth, but I'm hopeful that it will fade with time.


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