We loved that scooter. Jack loved that scooter. He borrowed scooters just like it all the time when he visited the playground. We totally thought he was ready for one. When Christmas rolled around it just made sense to us that Santa would bring little Jack a scooter of his own. We just wanted to be good parents. That’s all.
OK, so it goes a little fast. Dan runs next to Jack holding on to his shirt to help him stear and not go too fast. It certainly doesn’t help that we lived in Washington Heights. The highest point in all of Manhattan and the neighborhood with the most hills.
This accident did not however occur while going downhill. Of course it didn’t. My family does not do accidents the normal way. This accident happened while going uphill with Dan slowly holding and pushing the scooter. Damn those people who poured the cement on our sidewalk. That stupid scooter’s front wheels got caught on a lip of the sidewalk and pitched our poor child over the front of the scooter and landed him face first on the oh so gross NYC sidewalk. The results are not pretty. Before you get all judgy about the whole thing…yes he was wearing his bike helmet. If they made mouth guards for scootering he would have been wearing one of those as well. We are not terrible parents.
I am very proud of our reaction to this very upsetting injury. We calmly gave him ice and wet paper towels. Dan called the pediatrician and for that I do think he deserves a medal. He even had the number in his phone. Alright…it wasn’t the number for the right office, but he tried. He immediately used my phone and made the call. Then he made the decision to immediately take Jack to the pediatric dentist to see if he could help.
This being Jack’s first dental experience (please don’t judge me 8)) we were worried that it would taint him forever. Of course, Jack being Jack, handled the whole thing with ease and grace. He told everyone in the waiting room what had happened and smiled happily, cracked tooth included, the whole way into “The Room”. Jack sat on my lap in “The Chair” and was happy with the hygienist looking at his teeth with that little mirror thingy. She even gave him this creepy stuffed starfish that had a full set of teeth. It really was quite creepy, but Jack thought it was fantastic and it really helped him through the ordeal. That is until the dentist himself came in, turned on the drill, and proceeded to shave the cracked tooth so that it wouldn’t cut Jack’s tongue. To be fair when I asked the dentist how long he would drill for he said, “five seconds.” It was five seconds. That man was good and we will be going back.
Jack left with a goody bag of rubber ducks, stickers, and two tooth brushes. Oh! And a squishy tooth about three inches high. I don’t know what he will ever do with that. The other excellent perk of going to the dentist was the ultra cool doctor’s mask the hygienist gave him.
He wore that thing for over an hour while he ran around the courtyard of our building with his friends when we got home. I, of course, was the not so cool mom on the side who kept telling him to be careful whenever he got near the stairs or another running child. I simply could not take two injuries in one day. I did get a kick out of the other mothers looking worriedly at the doctor’s mask instead of asking me about it. They must have thought that I truly was that uncool mother who made their kid wear a mask out to play, for fear of catching germs. Or maybe they thought Jack had some terrible contagious illness I wasn’t telling them about. Either way I quietly laughed to myself about that.
Peace.
MomsenseNYC 