Thursday, April 8, 2010

"All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" by Maddie Edwards

Today was about a 15 minute heart wrenching, stomach turning kind of day at preschool.

For those of you who do not know, I teach at a Tuesday Thursday preschool at the church we go to. Maddie goes with me and she's in one of the 1's classes with her teacher Missy and I teach the other one. During nap time, Missy and I and our 2 helpers Nathalie and Becca, sit in the hallway outside our classrooms. Thats usually when we eat lunch, work on lesson plans, and get things done for the day.

Maddie has gotten to where she only naps for 20-30 min. while at preschool. Its kind of annoying because I can never get done what I need to do with her up roaming the halls. Anyways....today was one of those days where she took a very short nap and came out of her classroom to hang out with me in the hallway. She was sitting in my lap, but then decided to get up. She got up, took 2 steps and tripped. Probably over her own feet. I saw the whole thing happen. She lunged into the air and fell flat on her face. She used her nose to break her fall. I jumped to pick her up, I checked for blood, didn't see any, and ran her out of the hallway. Since I didn't see any blood, I didn't think it was that bad. I thought she would cry a little bit, then it would be over, so I wasn't terribly concerned at first. I ran her out of the hallway into the foyer (to keep her from waking up the kids), but then thats when I noticed the gush of blood spewing out of her mouth. Thats when panic set in. I could not tell where it was coming from and she was screaming like I never heard her scream before. There were also a few kids sleeping in some of the classrooms off the foyer, so I took Maddie and ran her through the auditorium and into the kitchen to sit her on the counter. I really didn't know what to do or where to go, the kitchen just seemed like a good place away from sleeping children.

Then thats where the horror set in. I set her down to figure out were the blood was coming from. When I opened her mouth, I DID NOT see front teeth. Thats when my stomach turned in knots. I started to think of "if her teeth aren't were their supposed to be, then where are they?" thoughts. I had lots of help come into the kitchen to help me out. One of them is an RN which is very comforting. After we got all the blood wiped off, I finally found her front teeth. Right were their supposed to be. I guess she was bleeding so much, I couldn't see them. After that, we figured her teeth cut the top inside of her lip which made her bleed so much. Her nose is a little bruised to, but after she stopped bleeding she calmed down and its like it never happened.

Uhg! What a day. I wish that your body would only bleed to the degree of the cut, if its not life threatening, It shouldn't bleed that much. Her lip is definitely swollen, but it doesn't seem to bother her. Poor thing, I felt so bad. I also hate to think this wont be last time something like that will happen either. All part of growing up I guess.