This may come as a surprise to many of you who know me well, but I have always laughed at the more extreme child safety products and their paranoia. Locks for your fridge, locks for your toilet, video monitors, and corner covers for every piece of furniture in your house. My personal favorite is the device that prevents doors from shutting all the way so that little ones can’t pinch their fingers in the door. Heaven forbid they actually learn something as basic as how not to hurt themselves. But I am now seriously considering the corner covers for all corners and furniture in my house or Blue Jeans might not make it to the age of 5 with his face intact.
Wednesday I had him scheduled to have his pictures taken at Target. Three hours before the appointment he ran through the kitchen with his bowl of snacks, tripped and landed teeth first into the dinning room chair. He didn’t knock out any teeth, but he hit so hard he gave himself a hematoma in his gums and lip above his upper front teeth and some nice teeth marks under his lip. That kind of injury can translate into crushed teeth up in his gums and dead nerves that cause the teeth to go gray. He was lucky enough not to have any crushed teeth, but the dentist said his teeth may very well go gray. “It’s only cosmetic for kids” he said to reassure me. Just cosmetic?! Easy for him to say, his kid isn’t going to be walking around with dead teeth for the next 5 years. When I finally can take him in for pictures once the vampire teeth marks do heal (look close you can see them), the exchange will go something like this:

Photographer to Blue Jeans: “Say “Cheese”!
Blue Jeans smiles.
Photographer: “Mmm. Maybe you better say “MOLDY Cheese instead.”

This is the kid whose mother gets stopped in the mall by modeling agencies and photographers in Walmart to tell me I need to have his portfolio done. Between the scars on his head and now his teeth I can kiss my life as a child star mother goodbye!

I was so looking forward to that too.