Being a mom means there's no quitting

When your title is Mom there is no quitting.

There's no:

Oh there's too much blood so I think I will go in the other room until it's over.
Oh there's poop EVERYWHERE I hope it cleans itself up.
Well she fell off the playground equipment again maybe if I turn my head and act like she's not my kid she will stop crying.

Today we found another situation in which you can't quit...a cracked tooth.  Looking back it is a much less dramatic story than I originally thought.  I picked her up from the daycare at the gym. She was smiling and playing with chalk and talking to the other little kids. It was sweet and I remember smiling watching her so happy.  I noticed a tear on her cheek but didn't think much of it. She falls and cries a lot.

We got in the car and she was a bit fussy. I thought it was because she wanted a snack. I usually give her a box of cereal on the way home. I didn't have any cereal in my bag but I did have toddler gummies. I gave them to her to eat and when the package was empty and she was still fussing I looked at her and realized something looked off.

My initial thought was that surely the weird looking tooth that I was seeing was just food in her mouth. They are gummies after all. Maybe they were so gummy they stuck.  We got to the store parking lot. I realized her tooth was chipped and my panic skyrocketed.

The hardest part about being a parent is just the feeling of inadequacy at times like this. What do I do? I don't know. Do I take her to the dentist? I don't have a pediatric dentist. Do I just ignore it and let the freaking out calm down? I don't think the freaking out will calm down.  We have been very fortunate that Miss M hasn't been sick. It appears that it's a good thing she hasn't been sick because I just lost it over a chipped tooth.

I wanted to just quit. I wanted to just turn off the car and make the situation go away. I didn't want to deal with it. When I was working and would run into situations where things got hard I just quit. I fired up Google and searched the internet until I felt the need to go back and pick up where I left off. This wasn't an option today. Sad. I love Google.

We came home. We found the toothbrush that Miss M was given when we were Trick-Or-Treating for Halloween in a local neighborhood. I called them and explained the situation. They told me they had a cancelation and that I could come in immediately. They were so nice. They quickly eased all my fears (at least the fears I had thought about - I hadn't thought about delayed speech - which they said isn't going to be a problem because she still has the tooth).  The tooth wasn't loose and the Dr. didn't predict any long term damage. She said it might discolor and then go back to its natural color (like a bruise).

The doctor sanded the tooth down to make the chip less pronounced and to ensure no sharp edges.

They said no hot or cold foods so that shot down our (my) plan of going to get a milkshake to make us both feel better (and the DQ was so close - sad)

Here's an unclose of Miss M at lunch (hence the food on her face). It's her top left tooth.

She seems happy enough.  I just panicked.  The tooth doesn't look that bad and it does look considerably better since the doctor sanded the tooth down.

Here's Miss M in the dentist chair.

 And after all the screaming and tears we went out to pay and she was fine.