SUZI: Hockey Teeth

I’m not really into sports.  I have a faint idea when certain sports start during the year.  I can name off a few teams.  Individual players?  Not so much.  I like going to live sporting events, but I pretty much go for the snacks and the company.  I cheer when everyone else is cheering, but I’m not always sure why.  I have a couple exceptions to my non-sporty self.  I used to play tennis in high school, and I do  enjoy watching tennis matches.  I also really like hockey. 

I really like live hockey. 

A lot.

When I was growing up, my dad regularly watched hockey games and we even got to go to several Blues games, which was just a really cool experience as a kid.  I knew a lot of the teams and players and I understood most of the rules.  Rules like the fact that you can fight and keep fighting until you fall down.  Because let’s face it, what’s a good hockey game without some really good fights. 

Right?  

(And, yes, I realize that I am a very non-violent person and I hate fighting and think that trying to solve anything by pummeling someone isn’t going to accomplish much, except somehow hockey and fights just seem to go together in my book.  Maybe I blindly think no one is actually getting hurt with all the padding in the uniform...) 

But between the flying pucks, waving hockey sticks and punches, a lot of hockey players are missing a few teeth.  I’m not so crazy about that part.

I never realized that my now two year-old son would start his hockey career so early.  When we were in Prague at the beginning of 2011, Cooper loved to look into our really tall bathtub and watch the water.  He bumped his mouth and just slightly chipped one of his teeth.  It wasn’t a huge thing, but I decided to have it checked out when we returned.  So, at the ripe old age of one, Cooper had his first dentist visit. 

Fast forward a few months…

Cooper is standing on a work platform in the kitchen (remember that there was constant construction going on in our house and Cooper had stood on this platform a hundred times with no problem).  Except that morning, he slipped and whacked his mouth on the counter. 

And cracked his front tooth in half. 

There was blood.  There was crying.  There were some parents with shaky hands and a Saturday call to the dentist.  No exposed nerves.  No apparent major damage.  There’s some sort of putty they can use to fill in the space, but there’s nothing we can do at this point until he can sit with his mouth open for 2 minutes straight.  That’s not happening anytime soon.

Fast forward a few more months…

Cooper, running like a maniac, tries to take a turn at full speed, but doesn’t quite make it and falls, head first, into our night stand.  More slightly chipped teeth. And a ripped frenulum labii superioris... yes, that little piece of skin that attaches your upper lip to your upper gum.  Feeling a little squirmy right now?  Imagine how much blood that entailed.  More parents with shaky hands. More dentist visits.  (This time with relief after the Dentist reports it was probably for the best since Cooper's little skin thingy was too long and would have needed fixing anyway!)

All told, we think he has five (maybe six) chipped or broken teeth! Cooper is amazingly steady on his feet, so it is unbelievable that he has done this multiple times.

Since he is so set on starting his hockey career this early, I’m seeing a mouth guard in his future!