"Mama!! my mouth is bleeding! "

First, let me surprise you all by saying this line was very oddly enough, NOT proclaimed in terror, as it usually is. This was announced happily!

My daughter becomes a shivery mess when she sees blood. must clean it, must have a bandage, must not see it herself. I am much the same way when it comes to any amount that qualifies as more than a scrape.

So occasionally , when my daughter brushes her teeth and spits blood with her rinse, she'll come running, convinced her tounge is falling off or something. She brushes hard, and does her gums very well for a child of her age. so yes, from time to time they bleed a little. Her dentist has told her its nothing to freak out about, yet, being blood, she can't help it.

The other night, I sent her to brush, and she cam running down the hall, very excited and ... happy. "Mama!!! Mama!! I was spitting blood !!! "

I had to ask why ,suddenly she sees this as a positive.

"because it means my teeth will finally fall out!! getting SO close now!"

I couldn't help but laugh a little. This is the last child on earth i ever expected to be excited about spitting blood, for ANY reason.

Its also somewhat understandable. Daughter has waited ever so patiently to loose her baby teeth, while her friends are all filling in thier numerous gaps.

Last year, she had to have her first loose tooth pulled out by the dentist, the thing was rooted so strongly that the adult tooth came out behind it. The one next to it came out on easter , a week later, when she bit into a boiled egg, (the dentist had loosened it up) she had thought it was an egg shell in her mouth.

Almost a year later, she has finally gotten those two front teeth loose. but they will not budge. she has tried everything to get one out, eating the hardest foods she can find.( Mother, on the other hand is torturing the child with palate checks- to make sure we don't have any more coming in where they shouldn't)

The excitment she shows about the spot of blood, because her teeth are loose , is due to the fact that she hasn't lost any without some kind of dental help at this point. She looks forward to the day she can gross me out by simply handing me her tooth, rather than the dentist taking it out, or mistaking it for food.

The day following her excited announcement, she fell in the yard and scraped her leg. This was the end of the world. I somewhat used the thrill of the previous night to calm her by telling the poor hysterical girl that she had more blood from her teeth the night before than from this scrape that had just the tiniest dot of blood. ( It had clotted before she got to the house)

go figure.

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While I'm at it, I'll share another odd dental story with you.

My kids are exactly 2 years and 6 months apart. Our insurance requires the children get thier checkups every 6 months. This works out great for me, because, evry time one of them has a birthday, we make the doctor rounds. physicals, eyes ,and teeth.

The last dental checkup was a surprise.

My son, who is 6 years old, had two of his 6yr molars in. the dentist capped them, because these are the ones most kids have problems brushing, waaay in the back. He tells me by the next visit the other two molars should be ready to cap as well, they were just beginning to break the gumline.
okie dokie.

Moving onto my daughter, who was 8 1/2 at the time- she hadn't gotten her 6yr molars YET. The dentist thought it a bit odd, but said he could see they were going to start soon.
She'll be 9 next month.
She's been complaining of some pain in the back of her mouth, so I think these molars may be attempting an appearance, just in time for another visit.

This is odd to us- along with the loosing of her baby teeth, becasue she got her baby teeth early. I mean surprisingly early. At 4 months old, she started popping teeth out 3 and 4 at a time, all over the place. Let me tell you, the kid was a true drool bucket. Bibs did no good for this one, we used dish towels. Those stupid chewing cookies, also no relief, she got T-bones to gnaw on.

The dentist we took her to at the time, and ourselves, all assumed this was a good thing- it meant she'd loose her baby teeth early, and most likely in pairs of 3 or 4... Everyone we talked to with kids had said the same if thier babies had teethed early. " oh yes! lil so-n-so had all his teeth in by a year and a half, and by 6 he was loosing pairs of baby teeth while his molars were still coming in"

Like I said above though, this is not the case. Those babies are hanging on tight,and for some strange reason her 6 yr molars are taking thier sweet time breaking the surface. Leaves us wondering if our daughter will be the only child in the high school still waiting for her two front teeth to fall out !