New Year, new hope!

So, 2008 ended in a big way at our house. First of all Tristan had to go back to Las Vegas the Sunday after Christmas. He did take a week off without pay after all. So, if that wasn't bad enough for the kids and I, Hailey had a bad spill that night right before bed. She fell really hard onto the stairs and landed full force right onto her mouth. (onto her top lip and top teeth) Carter had about 2 minutes left on his bottle and was on his way to bed, so I had to lay him down on the floor to grab Hailey and run to the bathroom before blood dripped all over the carpet. The mouth typically bleeds a lot anyway, but hers was full of blood and I couldn't tell what was going on or what had happened inside. We got it mostly cleaned out and it seemed to be stopping and I could see then that her gums, lip, and front two teeth were clearly not right. I was freaking out, Hailey was freaking out, of course, and little Carter was just walking around talking to himself. I called Tristan immediately because I didn't know what to do and he was able to calm us down a little and talk to Hailey while I laid Carter in bed. Then he called his brother, Nate, who was going into dentistry and got some advice for me. I couldn't tell if her teeth had been pushed back (well, that's what I thought had happened at the time) or what because they looked different but I guess I've never studied them up close before. He said that it would have no affect on her permanent teeth and that there wasn't really anything I could do to fix anything except try to pull her teeth back forward and see if they move back into place. Ug. I felt so bad already, but she was doing pretty well, so I thought I'd give it a try. I tried twice to no avail. So I figured maybe they didn't move as much as I first thought they did. Her gums looked so yucky and bloody that it was still hard to tell what was going on. Eventually she was so worn out I rocked her to sleep in the recliner and was able to look around a little better. Oh it must have hurt so bad. She is a real trooper. After she went to bed I was looking at a few pictures taken recently and I realized they were definitely altered! :) Even now the gums are still a little discolored from bruising, but nothing like they were in the few days following. The teeth I'm pretty sure were pushed up into her gums. There is hardly any tooth surface space from the backside sticking out from the gum line now. She looks a little different, but she's still such a cutie and such a good sport.
The worst part (well on top of it that is) is that two days later she came down with the flu. The actual 24 hour trowing up anything that went down and even trying to throw up anything even if nothing was down flu. It was hard. The friends nearby were sweet and very helpful. It was a rough few days that's for sure.
It gets better though...at least Hailey only had the 24 hour flu and eventually felt better and was keeping food and popsicles down, so that both children went to bed good for New Year's Eve. After which I got going cleaning, scrubbing, and disinfecting just about every surface in our house. It felt SO good. I didn't have any kids clinging to me and the germs were disappearing. It was actually a good NYE. Tristan was in Vegas calling me and we were reporting what was happing on the tv versus what he was seeing during the two big stunt shows he and his bro, Pete, attended. I got into my room to get ready for bed just as the countdown started to the New Year! It started out well, and I'm really hopeful that 2009 is going to be good to us. At least live together in the same house again. Wherever that may be!