It’s a working day for me today. The girls were playing in the morning, when Daddy was at the wet market and Jelly was doing house work.

45mins into my conference call, I heard crying downstairs, Zaria first, followed by Zara. Then Zara came up and she sobbed while she told me, “Mummy, I pushed Zaria and she fell down, her mouth got blood.”. I thought, maybe Zaria’s lip was cut; as I was hosting the meeting, I had to get someone to replace me, before I could go check on Zaria. While I was trying to do that, Jelly came and told me, “Mum, Zaria’s teeth came off.”

Oh shit!

I quickly updated my colleague on the emergency, and checked on Zaria. One of her upper teeth has been pushed into the gums, just a tiny bit still ‘exposed’, with blood dripping down her chin. Zaria didn’t cry, but just said, “Jiejie pushed me, got so much blood you know.”.

My heart almost stopped seeing the bloody gums. And imagine my rage towards Zara. I was scolding her while comforting Zaria, and even gave her a few smacks on the buttocks. I told her police may want to investigate the case, she better had her bags packed because she might need to stay in the police station for investigation. (I’m bad, I know. Really really mean. To think back now, it doesn’t help with me aggravating the situation.)

After I found someone to be my back up, I went downstairs to get ready to bring Zaria to a nearby dentist. Zara had already taken a bag downstairs and a few pieces of her clothing. I felt sorry for her but I was still angry so I didn’t comfort her.

Daddy got back just in time to go to the dentist together.

At the dentist, I was shaking when the dentist checked on Zaria. As I was sighing a lot and kept uttering “Aiyo..” The dentist told me to have Daddy hold Zaria instead while she carried out the procedure. She said my anxiety may affect Zaria. This was what she did, first, rubbed some gel to numb Zaria’s gum, then she put local anesthetic, and then she pulled the tooth out to its original position and use a thread to tie it around the tooth and other teeth to hold its position, and hope the cells around her gum will grow and grip the tooth back. It may or may not be successful, and Zaria may have a slow growth in her 2nd set of tooth, due to the impact.

Zara and I were peeping from the outside; When I saw the big syringe taken out to inject the local anesthetic on Zaria’s gum, I almost cried. Zara was still sobbing, feeling afraid and sorry.

Zaria was a tough cookie. She didn’t cry and was very cooperative. The dentist was quite good too, she gave Zaria a pair of sunglasses, spoke calmly to her, and when she had to inject the anesthetic, or pull the tooth out, she used her other hand to cover Zaria’s eyes, so she can’t really see what was being done to her.

After everything was done, Zara said, “Luckily the dentist fixed the tooth, I don’t have to go to the police station now.” o.O”

I just hope the tooth is really fixed, and Zara will learn from the lesson of not being too rough to Zaria.