Niki Falls and Faces

The first week we were here, what does Niki do but fall down the stairs again. This time I got pictures. I put her in the tub with an orange Popsicle to stop the bleeding. She cheered right up. Her goose ache was SO BIG, I've never seen one that size before. It looked like she had a rubber bouncy ball stuck under her skin. Needless to say, the next day I bought a foam mat at Costco and put it on the tile at the bottom of Grandma's stairs.

She's only had one fall since then and it didn't hurt a bit. She was so surprised that she started screaming and feeling her teeth. As soon as she realized she was fine, she laughed and choked back the tears. Silly girl.

This wasn't as bad or traumatic as her first fall down the hard wood stairs at our friend's house. I heard her fall and came running. Blood gushing from her mouth, I saw that her outside tooth was pointed completely forward instead of up. I went into disaster. Undress kid, rinse with water, call pediatric dentist. By then she had managed to push the tooth back into place with her finger. Put in tub, give Tylenol. The dentist said all I could do was wait for the bleeding to stop and watch. If the tooth went black, bring her in. An hour later, the bleeding finally slowed enough to take her out of the tub and go home. It must have been a bigger shock to me than I thought because I still get goosebumps every time I go to that house.
Niki's 4 bottom teeth were all crooked with bloody gaps in between. We alternated Motrin and Tylenol and fed her smoothies for a day. We even had a dentist friend take a look at her. He said kids under 2, especially under 1 (her birthday was the next week) heal remarkably with very few casualties. Give it 3 weeks he said and things will move back into place on their own. He was right. What a blessing.

And here's some funny faces Niki pulls just for the sake of more pictures: