Anna Kate's great tooth fiasco!

It all began last Wednesday night.  We were up at the church building to eat supper before youth group and kids programs.  I was in the kitchen preparing the food and Anna Kate wanted to play with one of the big ice chest coolers.  She has quite the fascination with them.  You know, the ones with wheels on one side and a handle on the other.  She just thinks it's super fun to pull it around like a wagon.  Anyway, she was pulling it around the fellowship hall and then had an idea.  She got on top of it and asked one of her little friends to pull her on it.  Probably not the greatest plan, but just one of those things that kids will do.  Well, it wasn't long before we heard her fall.  She was crying about her mouth hurting and upon closer inspection we realized that about a fourth of one of her top front teeth was missing.  While it was all Anna Kate's idea to ride on the ice chest, her little friend felt terrible!  He was so cute afterward when he said, "But I was only going medium speed!"


So back to the tooth.  We called our dentist first thing the next morning and he worked us right in.  He said that he could fix it very easily with a white composite filling and it would take 10 minutes and be as good as new.  The only catch was that she would have to sit still for it.  And that was NOT going to happen.  She behaved perfectly until he stuck the first instrument in her mouth and then it was all over.  So our dentist suggested we wait a week, talk about what the appointment would be like, practice playing dentist, and give her atarax (like Benadryl) an hour beforehand.  So we tried that for our next appointment a week later.  We brought Daddy along for that appointment...but that was a no-go as well.  So Dr. Carson referred us to a pediatric dentist in Columbia.  He said they might have more luck with our strong-willed two-year-old!

We headed into Columbia for our consultation appointment this morning and met the dentist and the assistants and I was encouraged that they might possibly be able to fix my sweet girl's tooth.  We were planning on having to come back for another visit for the actual procedure, but then the dentist asked if we wanted to just wait a few minutes and he would work us in.  Yes!  The plan was to give Anna Kate some nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and hope that it calmed her down long enough to do the procedure.  So we waited in the super cool movie theater room for a little while, just long enough for Luke to meet us there.  He hadn't planned on coming since it was just a consult appointment, but as soon as he found out they were going to actually do the procedure, he came right over!

Anna Kate did great for the initial administering of the laughing gas (she thought the mask on her nose was pretty silly) and really did pretty well for the topical anesthetic as well as the injection.  It wasn't until the filing of the jagged tooth that the assistants and I had to do a little bit of restraining.  But let me tell you what, this pediatric dentist knew what he was doing!  He did a fantastic job (even with Anna Kate exercising her strong set of lungs...) and fixed her tooth as good as new in 10 minutes flat!  It was quite an exhausting time, but it's all over and sweet girl's smile is all fixed!

I did get a couple of pictures so that you can see some before and after shots!

This first one is pre-accident.  You can click on the pictures to make them bigger so you can see her pretty smile!



This one was the first morning after the fall.



And this one was taken this afternoon.  All fixed up!



We have had quite the week, but as my grandpa would say, we are "just one step farther along in life" for having walked through it!  But we're glad that's done!