And "Mom of the Year" Goes To...

Umm, not me --- not after missing the fact my young daughter nearly bit her own tongue clean through.

Last Wednesday I took the children to preschool gym at the Y to run off energy. For the most part, they each had a blast. At one point our 21-month old took a minor tumble and started to cry.

I scooped our daughter into my arms and snuggled her against my shoulder. She buried her face in my shirt and sobbed. After a few minutes another mom approached me and said, "She's bleeding quite a lot, you know..."

Sure enough, I pulled my daughter away and was shocked to find both our shirts covered in blood. I'm not one to panic at the sight of blood and I know a tiny mouth injury can often bleed like a geyser. I calmly found some tissues and mopped up the mess.

Our little girl stopped crying and assertively stated, "Go play now!" She toddled off and that was that. The trauma was over.

Or so I thought.

Fast forward to yesterday...

Our silly girl has quite a sense of humour and loves entertaining an audience. At lunch time she made a game of sticking out her tongue and making funny noises. I caught a glimpse of her cute little tongue and was shocked to see two deep tooth marks embedded in its surface. They looked like two huge craters.

How had I missed this for five days?

I knew my daughter had bitten her tongue that day at the Y. It never occurred to me to actually look for the damage in her mouth. (Seems like a fairly obvious first step, I know...) She stopped crying, ran off to play, and the issue was over.

Lesson learned: When a child is bleeding profusely it's usually best to seek out the source of the leak!