Two things about Emer
Jun. 28th, 2009 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ailbheToday she said that a piece of her tooth came out at Meeting and she took it out of her mouth with her hand and it's gone. I can't tell whether or not that's true. It's five days until her dentist appointment. If I could rot my own teeth instead o fhers, I would. If I could repair her teeth byt strength of will, I would. If heartbreak and regret could undo the damage, it woudl be undone.
But it can't, and it's not, and I am crying. I want it to be ok. I don't want her sedated. I don't want her to lose a tooth before she's even three. I don't want her to have fillings and gaps and most of all I don't want her to have been so very very ill when she was eight months old and I don't want her to have had the antibiotics for that illness. The illness or the fever or the antibiotics are probably what damaged the unerupted tooth bud, then forming in her baby gum, and the antibiotics we forced into her, holding her mouth shut while she gagged them up and reswallowed them, going purple all the while, that's what gave her the oral aversion. And the oral aversion is what made toothbrushing so traumatic, so where Linnea at this age brushed her own teeth almost perfectly and opened gleefully for a grown-up finish, Emer fights and screams and cries and locks her jaw.
The only good thing is that since the more intense toothbrushing regime, her teeth no longer hurt her - the fighting is fury, not pain, now, and that's very clear. I'm trying to work out how to change the way she likes to breastfeed, too, because the teeth most exposed to milk are in much better condition than the ones which hardly ever get touched. But her positioning preferences are very strong.
This evening, Emer tied the arms of her nightie around her neck, and hung it red behind her back, because "My Am A Hupahewo."
then she took it off and gave me a careful step-by-step lesson in how to tie a knot; "And den dis bit like dat, and den dis bit fwoo heah, and den dis bit UP, and den..."
There is a whole lot of love in the world.
But it can't, and it's not, and I am crying. I want it to be ok. I don't want her sedated. I don't want her to lose a tooth before she's even three. I don't want her to have fillings and gaps and most of all I don't want her to have been so very very ill when she was eight months old and I don't want her to have had the antibiotics for that illness. The illness or the fever or the antibiotics are probably what damaged the unerupted tooth bud, then forming in her baby gum, and the antibiotics we forced into her, holding her mouth shut while she gagged them up and reswallowed them, going purple all the while, that's what gave her the oral aversion. And the oral aversion is what made toothbrushing so traumatic, so where Linnea at this age brushed her own teeth almost perfectly and opened gleefully for a grown-up finish, Emer fights and screams and cries and locks her jaw.
The only good thing is that since the more intense toothbrushing regime, her teeth no longer hurt her - the fighting is fury, not pain, now, and that's very clear. I'm trying to work out how to change the way she likes to breastfeed, too, because the teeth most exposed to milk are in much better condition than the ones which hardly ever get touched. But her positioning preferences are very strong.
This evening, Emer tied the arms of her nightie around her neck, and hung it red behind her back, because "My Am A Hupahewo."
then she took it off and gave me a careful step-by-step lesson in how to tie a knot; "And den dis bit like dat, and den dis bit fwoo heah, and den dis bit UP, and den..."
There is a whole lot of love in the world.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-29 11:30 am (UTC)Sometimes I feel better if I identify the emotion for the unhelpful primitive reaction that it is - trying to keep it in check. Before it chastizes me again, and gives me restless days and nights.
Guilt has a way of making me responsible for all that has gone wrong: whether or not it was something I could have done differently, and even when it was not actually anything I had chosen to do.
Because there really is no remaking the past - the spilt milk will not run back. And it is possible that the course of action with the oral antibiotics has made the current situation. But possibly it is something slightly different: genetic factors etc. And even possible that this is a childhood condition - when the adult teeth come in, there may be no difficulties at all.
But I sympathise.