Remaining calm in the face of…. a broken face?

Just a few days ago, I was reconnecting w/ a friend that I hadn’t spoken to in a few months. He was asking me how my 10-day silent retreat went and what I got out of it.

I was telling him how one of the biggest things I got was how I had been living in fear (w/out knowing it) about my children and that something might happen to them. (See my recent post entitled “Are You Attached To Your Children? Could You Live Without Them?”).

I told him that since the retreat, I have been so much more laid back, peaceful, and at ease when it comes to my kids… so much less uptight and way more willing to just let them be kids without being unbearingly overprotective.

Then I was put to the test…

The very next day after telling him this (which was the day before yesterday), Ava (my 2-year-old) fell and her face was immediately covered in blood. Her lip was bleeding badly and I spent about 15 minutes holding towels over it until I was able to get the bleeding under control. I then laid her down to change her diaper and as she opened her mouth (she was still crying) I noticed she had a tooth missing and a big gaping hole in the top of her mouth (it was the tooth next to the very front teeth).

I rushed her in to an emergency pediatric dentist and upon examining her and taking some x-rays, he could see that the tooth had actually been pushed all the way up into her gums, to the point where you can’t even see it. The front tooth next to it had been pushed up as well, not all the way, but it’s definitely much smaller now than the other front tooth.

Patience, patience, patience…

He explained to me that there’s nothing we can do at this point, except wait it out… he said sometimes the tooth will come back down on it’s own in a situation like this, and if not we will talk about options as far as removing it (do we put her under, or not… both terrible options in my opinion). He said we may have to wait 2-4 months!

In the meantime, Ava’s face has swelled up terribly (kind of like when someone has their wisdom teeth pulled) and is now bruising as well (she has a black eye, etc). It’s extremely painful for me to look at her… I can actually FEEL her pain… and it breaks my heart to see her like this. She’s still in a lot of pain as well, which is the hardest part.

It’s almost as if the Universe heard me say that I was peaceful in regard to my kids now and decided to test me, to throw me a real curve ball to see how peaceful I could remain in the face of it.

Wow.

Well I definitely have stayed unrecognizably calm through all of this… although I have an ongoing sick feeling in my stomach and I’m just yearning for my little girl to feel better again. Her sister (who’s 5) has been crying about it a lot as well… wishing her sister didn’t have to suffer like this.

I keep asking myself, “What’s the lesson in this?”

And I’ve learned a lot actually.

I know things are happening exactly as they’re supposed to (because they always do) and that ‘it’s all good’. And I know that there’s something for me to gain from this experience.

It’s a great opportunity to practice the art of remaining peaceful in the face of whatever life throws at us…

And it’s certainly a great reminder about how much in control we are NOT.

I’ve also been practicing gratitude (it could always be worse, right?). I have 2 beautiful children and so very much to be grateful for.

And I also know that this is what I signed on for when I decided to have kids. As a friend of mine wrote in response to my Facebook post the other night,

“Also beware of climbing skinny trees… and going fast on bicycles, and bacteria, and contact sports, and… oh yeah, Mardi Gras.”

The worrying literally never ends if that’s what you want to focus on. And we literally have no control anyway, so what’s the point?

It’s times like this that remind me how amazing we are as a species. Because before having kids, I didn’t even know it was POSSIBLE to love another human being this much. If you’re a parent, I’m sure you can relate.

More than anything, I’m so thankful that I’ve been able to be with Ava through every minute of this traumatic experience. She’s been needing a ton of love and cuddling, snuggling, hugging, etc and it’s been such a joy to be able to provide that for her. This is, in my opinion, one of the most precious and amazing things about being a mom.

Have you had an experience similar to this? What did it bring up for you? How did you handle it? Please share your stories and comments… I’d love to hear from you.

And feel free to Retweet and share this post on Facebook and around town so we can hear from lots of other moms, too. We’ll get a juicy conversation going… and we can all provide comfort for each other .