Agony

So Wednesday was one of those days. It had been going all right. We were working on the house and getting stuff done, you know? So finally after dinner Craig decides to go back and get a few more things done and he leaves me in charge of putting the kids to bed. This shouldn't be a big deal since I've done that plenty of times, but you can probably already hear the eerie, something-bad-is-coming music playing...

I decided that Bentley needed a bath, and so after putting Kendra down, I got ready for this endeavor. You have to keep in mind that I have not given Bentley a bath since I was pregnant with Kendra and got too big to bend over the tub. So it's probably been nine months or so since I've done this. (Don't worry-- Craig has faithfully picked up the slack; we haven't just let him sit around getting dirty all this time!) So I gave Bentley his bath and it actually went just fine. I was thinking to myself, "Hey, maybe I should stop making Craig do this all the time for me!" (Here is where the eerie music should be getting louder.)

And then came time to brush his teeth. I did it the way Craig always does it, which is to stand Bentley up on the counter wrapped in his towel, brush his teeth for him and then let him brush them himself. That was going just fine, too, until Bentley grabbed his sippy cup, which didn't have a lid on it, and wanted to pour the water all over himself (the same way he does during his bath!). As I struggled to keep the sippy cup out of his hands long enough to get a lid on it, Bentley scooted back and fell right off of the counter.

There were several thumps as he crashed down, hitting his face on the counter, and bouncing back only to topple over the toilet and land head-down with his feet up on the toilet. As you can probably imagine, lots of crying and bleeding ensued. After about five minutes, though, the bleeding had slowed down and Bentley was calming down as well. I figured I ought to get the kid in a diaper, at least, since he was still wrapped up in a towel, and as I layed him down to do that, I realized that one of his front teeth was missing!

What kind of a mother manages to knock out her kid's tooth??? All that time I'd thought he bit his tongue or something and wasn't too worried, but somehow a big gap in his teeth seemed about twenty times worse than a bit tongue.

Anyway, we took him to urgent care that night, and it sure made for a long and miserable experience. (In case you wondered what happened to Kendra, who was already asleep by this time, Tom and Donna were wonderful and stayed home with her; she didn't wake up once!) Bentley seems to be recovering nicely, but my idea of myself as a half-way decent mom may be damaged beyond repair (no, that's not meant to be a plea for people to tell me I'm a good Mom, so don't feel the need to leave comments soothing my ego).

Most moms I've talked to seem to have similar stories, which does make me feel as though I'm not the only one who's managed to do this, but it does bring on another question-- how has the human race survived as well as it has??? Makes you wonder, huh? And if you ever wondered why we had to start out with baby teeth before moving on to the permanent ones, well, wonder no more. I'm beginning to think it's one of our best features!