Zoe bumped her tooth two days ago. Now, if this had happened to any other person on the planet, it would not be a blog-worthy event. But the fact that Zoe has a phobia about her teeth falling out, coupled with the fact that she has a flair for the dramatic, makes it blog-worthy, indeed. (Truth be told, if it were up to Zoe none of her teeth would ever fall out, even with the tooth fairy dropping some coin. If it were up to Zoe, she would just keep her baby teeth and grow in her big teeth behind them… in rows… like a shark… a really, really dramatic shark.)

So she bumped her tooth. I’m not even sure how it happened, exactly. I know that she was in the kitchen, but that doesn’t give us much to go on as far as reconstructing the event. It was a baby tooth. On the bottom. One that had been a little loose anyway. But once she spotted a drop of blood — mixed with an ounce of spit, which, when combined, ends up looking like a gallon of blood — she completely freaked and ran into the bathroom to look in the mirror. Then she repeatedly screamed for help. I went in and applied a tissue and showed her that it was not a gallon of blood, but rather a drop of blood. Mostly it was just harmless spit. But her loose tooth had been knocked a little askew and was now even more loose, and possibly on the verge of falling out some time before Christmas. She continued to freak out… only now with her mouth closed, as she was afraid that if she screamed with her mouth open, the force of the expelled air from her screams would cause the tooth to fly out of its socket.

Have you ever heard someone scream with their mouth closed? It’s an interesting sound.

So now she was afraid to open her mouth. Which meant she couldn’t talk. She carried around a pencil and wrote on things when she wanted to talk. She wrote things like, “I am afraid my tongue will touch my tooth and it will fall out” and “I really want a drink, but I can’t open my mouth”. Also, her friend came over to play. Zoe mostly just lounged on the couch, writing updates on her condition to her friend while her friend watched movies.

Other than opening her mouth, she was also afraid to swallow… because what if the split-second before she swallowed, her tooth came out and then when she swallowed, her tooth went down her throat with her spit!?! So her closed mouth kept filling up with spit. Between writing notes to everyone, she would periodically go out on the deck and spit. Well, not really spit (she’s too lady-like to know how to spit)… she would hang her upper body way out over her toes and kind of drool while shaking her head back and forth violently, trying to break the spit string.

Soon she and her friend got an idea. They came up and asked — well, Zoe’s friend asked, Zoe only nodded and made hand gestures — if they could go visit Karen, one of the neighbors on the next street.

“Why do you want to see Karen?” I asked.

“Because,” Zoe’s friend said, “she’s good at helping when you get hurt.”

Karen, for the record, works for the Boy Scouts of America office. While I’m sure she is up on her first aid certificiation, I’m not sure there was a whole lot she could do to un-loosen a baby tooth. But finally I agreed to let them go over and ask Karen for dental advice, half expecting Zoe to come home with her tooth splinted with a small twig and some twine. But a few minutes later the girls came back looking forlorn, as Karen wasn’t home. They had run out of options.

Zoe didn’t eat lunch or dinner that day. She wrote notes about how hungry and thirsty she was. I tried to give her some cucumber slices. She took a slice and broke it into quarters. Then she took the tiny cucumber wedge and nibbled it like a hamster on the “good” side of her mouth. Then she frowned and threw the wedge onto the plate, as the cucumber was too hard to nibble, and would no doubt loosen her tooth more if she were to eat it.

She ran to her bed and cried. With her mouth closed.

I wish I were kidding about any of this, but it’s all true.

The next morning she woke up, found that her tooth had “re-hardened” a little, and she started talking. She said that her stomach hurt because she was so starving. And she was soooo thirsty. I took her some water. She drank a ton of it. Then she threw up water all over her bed.

All because she bumped her tooth.

Luckily, by my estimation, she only has about 12 baby teeth left to lose.

food poisoning.

(Taco Bell… ’nuff said)

Hi. I’m on the couch. I’m sleeping here tonight. My husband has been “flushing out his body” for the last 24 hours.

I believe it is swine flu.

Because several people at his office had swine flu. And 14 out of the 2,736,424 people in the state of Utah have died from swine flu. So, naturally, when he starts getting sick, it must be swine flu!

(nevermind that he had Taco Bell for dinner last night, an obvious culprit of food poisoning… because, swine flu!)

So I call my mom and I’m all swine flu! And she’s all food poisoning? And I’m all no, woman, you don’t listen! swine flu!

And then I go into the bathroom and I look at my poor hubby hugging the toilet bowl and I’m all swine flu?? And he’s all bbllllaaahhhhkkkk…

And then I text my friend, Heidi, and I’m all OMG Jon is brf-ing. SWN FLU! And she’s all w/e ur coming to work out tues morn anyway… because she is a hard core trainer/friend that way.

And then I call my in-laws and I’m all swine flu! And then my mother-in-law is all *thunk* because she has passed out and dropped the phone. And I’m starting to think that maybe I should reel it in a little with all of the swine flu!

And now Jon is sleeping peacefully, after 24 hours of barfing. Which is exactly how long a 24-hour stomach bug lasts. Or almost exactly how long food poisoning would last from, say, a tainted, nasty-licious Crunch Wrap Supreme.

But still, I’m sleeping on the couch tonight. Just in case, you know…

… swine flu.