Hillbilly Son

Asher has always been a bit accident prone. I suppose this is pretty typical for a lot of children. The problem with Asher's tendency towards accidents is that he never really acquired the very important skill of putting his hands down when he falls.... resulting in his face taking the brunt of most of his falls.

When Asher was about 18 months, he fell off a bench in our house and knocked one of his front teeth up into his head. The tooth came back out, was rather chipped, a bit crooked, but none worse for the wear. Then, in February of 2008, Asher was standing in a canoe in the snow (yup, you read that right) when he fell (shocking, I know), hitting his mouth on the side of the canoe. He knocked his two front teeth up into his head again. This time they started to come back out, a bit buck-toothed, a bit more chipped... adding to the character of our son.

I noticed last week that Asher had a sore on his gum. It looked like a canker sore, but I thought I should probably keep an eye on it. It has not gotten better over the last week and a half. In fact, it got worse. I called the dentist this morning. I remember our dentist friend from Minot told us to watch for a sore on the gum because it could mean an abscessed tooth. Well, the sore was indeed an abscessed tooth. No longer does Asher have crooked, chipped, graying, spaced out front teeth... he's got no front teeth... possibly for the next 2-3 years. He'll be our hillbilly son, but a pretty cute hillbilly nonetheless.