oh what a night!

wow, was my mommy strength tested this evening. whew! first off, i must say that everything ended fine.

at bedtime this evening (7:30ish) the boys were all ready to be tucked into bed. they were showered, teeth were clean, and they smelled like little babies all smothered in their lotion. i told bubba to ''jump in bed and lay down''. well, for the first time ever, he took me literally.

he jumped into bed.

while jumping into bed, he missed his pillow and hit his headboard.

with his mouth.

oh holy hell was i trying to remain so calm on the outside while freaking out on the inside. blood was everywhere. and i know, with most mouth injuries there is a lot of blood but it's somewhat superficial. usually. this was not the case. honestly, i thought i was going to faint there was blood everywhere. clothes, counter, in his mouth, on me, in the sink. i had to set him down because while i was being all ''cool mommy'' on the outside, i felt like puking on the inside.

so while i get him into the bathroom, B gets a washcloth full of ice and after a few minutes he finally lets me look to see what exactly happened. i mean at this point i didn't know if it was his teeth, lip, cheek, tongue--i didn't have a clue. so he lets me look and he has a deep deep cut on his bottom lip. after arguing back and forth with B as to whether this warranted an ER visit, we opted to give it a few minutes and see if it stopped bleeding.

so while hes sucking on the washcloth, we change his pj's. (covered in blood and tears). i get some tylenol and get maybe 1/4 tsp in him. i get to finally look and it has stopped bleeding. i moved his lip even and it didn't start again. great! no ER visit! he has stopped crying and wants his nanaw. i am trying to get him to take more tylenol and he refuses, insists on nanaw. so i do what any panicked mom does, i call his freaking nanaw. after a bit of searching i get a hold of her and she heads straight over.

nanaw gets here and has her special flashlight and asks him to let her see inside his mouth. he actually freaking does it without protest! well while she is looking at the bottom lip, i pull up his top lip because i noticed that his upper teeth were bloody. big mistake, almost passed out. blood everywhere and it looks like tooth or bone or tissue-something-is poking through his gumline above his teeth. i frantically look from B to nanaw and we silently, mentally say ''ER now". we calmly get bubba all situated in nanaws car and we (nanaw, myself and bubba) head out. as he's being buckled into the car he finds nanaws old sunglasses. he decides to wear these. all evening. while at the ER.

on the way there we asked bubba where he thought we were going, he said (quite matter of fact) ''to nanaws house". so we told him no, that we decided that we needed to take him to a doctor to look at his owie. we wanted to make sure that the ice was helping. he was pretty cool about it, surprisingly. he decided that his sunglasses were going to keep his eyes safe while they used a light like nanaw. while walking into the ER he decided that they also gave him super-powers. (i ♥ this kid)

to make a (an already) long story short, we were able to get him into and back out of the ER in record time. i honestly don't think that we were there any longer than 45 minutes! the doctor looked at his whole mouth, checked his jaw, ears and eyes. apparently that mystery thing that was sticking through his gum, was....his gum. he essentially whacked his mouth on the headboard, causing his upper gumline to tear from his gum, getting thrusted upward. it ripped and was up higher than it should be. (obviously!) as ugly as it is, they don't do anything for it. stitches won't work, it will heal on it's own. the cut on the bottom, while deep, did not need stitches either, which surprised the doctor! he has to be on a soft food diet for the next week and we have to have him rinse his mouth after he eats.

bubba was a trooper! he didn't cry, he let them mess with his mouth, he answered their questions and did great. he asked for a sticker and they gave him 6! when she was saying that he needed to eat soft foods, man was he on board. he was throwing out suggestions like cake and pie. (while still wearing his sunglasses). i'll try to get a pic of his super fat lip tomorrow. i'll spare you the upper and inner lip pictures. ugh.

oh and me? was never so thankful to have my mommy with me! when they pulled back his upper lip, in the harsh florescent lighting and while using gauze and a ginormous q-tip, i thought i was going to vomit. good thing my mom has done this sorta thing before. thanks mom!

edited to add two pictures from today (11/14/08):
oh and ps, if you're looking for something funny and light-hearted to read after this grotesquely detailed post, check out my younger blood sibling's blog here. just trust me, it's worth the click. you'll have to ignore the super boring first paragraph that is full of med school jargon...just skim over that and read the second paragraph and below. he is the type of brother that always finds himself hilarious and while i usually use disagree, after tonight, i agree. i needed this!