Broken Babies and Little Mercies

 

It has been soooooome week.

Somehow, despite the fact that I was able to get four children through babyhood relatively unscathed- including my bull-in-a-china-closet boy Judah (by some miracle!), the fifth time has to be the 'charm'.   Ineke had a more than minor setback this week when she fell off a couple of stairs onto concrete.  I am not sure if she hit her mouth on the stairs or on the concrete but the place she made contact during the fall was her two little bitty baby bottom teeth.  The fall resulted in a very bloody baby (I'm telling you- it was gruesome!) and a very frantic mother when I put my finger in her mouth to find the 'cut' and discovered both of her baby teeth and gums startlingly move forward with my finger.  Turns out, she fractured the part of her lower jaw that connects with the teeth.   She is on a pureed food diet for the next two weeks as we wait to see if the bone heals and forms back together on its' own or if further measures need to be taken.  I won't go into the 'further measures' or the possible problems she may face down the road.  I'll not borrow worry.  We'll know more in two weeks.  And that is where I leave it.  In the meantime, I've been given strict orders not to let hard things go near her mouth (she is not even allowed things like cheerios) and warned that any repeat trauma (read: mouth bonking) could ruin any healing that may be able to happen.  Well, you tell my teething, toddling 11 month old not to put hard toys near her mouth, her fingers IN her mouth or that she can't push her little teeth forward with her tongue, playing with the flap of teeth that are not supposed to move.  And as she toddled around (yes, she's taken her first steps and is making her way-quite precariously-across rooms now), you try and see how easy it is to keep her from getting 'bonked'.  The girl needs to be wrapped up in a ball of bubblewrap to fulfill that tall order.  It's been interesting.  It will continue to BE interesting.  I pray that her jaw/teeth are able to heal without any permanent damage.  (Please, Lord!)  She is in good spirits though- the pain doesn't seem to bother her as much as the fact she can't eat a few crackers now and again.

That night was topped off with a flat as a pancake tire on my van but praise God, the air started gushing as we pulled back in the driveway and not out on the highway in the dark.  There are always silver linings and that one was no small thing.

The very next day, I learned that a friend of mine is going through a situation even worse as her two-year old son was involved in a farm accident and had to have two of his little fingers amputated.  Poor soul!  Poor, hurting babies.  Life is fragile, isn't it?  Bodies are fragile.  We forget because we use them so hard and they so often take the beating without much ado.  But then, in a moment, we realize just how finite, just how small, just how dependent we are upon every single second of mercy God gives.  The little pearly teeth planted firmly in your mouth is a mercy!  Those ten fingers on my hand as I type are a mercy.  A mercy times every minute of every day that I have been living that I wasn't even thankful for until I realized that it didn't need to be so.  And the accidents were mercies too.  Baby Ineke and Baby Tye could have been broken so much more deeply- so much more tragically.

Life is a mercy.  Every single minute of it.

I'm  sorry it took two broken babies to remind me of that fact.