Bad Ass?

My daughter was in high school when a routine dental exam revealed that her two top and four bottom front teeth needed root canals.  Weird right?  We could not figure what was going on?  They check again, and then the dentist said, “Was she ever hit in the mouth while growing up?”

This daughter, took to sports immediately.  She had more competitiveness in her blood than really was healthy.  In elementary school, when they would have the kids form two lines, for a relay race of sorts, she would purposely position herself so she would get to race a boy.  She took great pleasure in being faster than a boy, and she was faster… a lot.  I admit after all these years, I took a little pride in it too.  She was great at sports and so it began.  The thing I didn’t love was when she got hurt.  She was tough, but it is just different when your little girl gets hurt than when it’s your son.  I know.  I know.  Sterotype…  boys are rough and tough.  A scar or knocked out tooth is cool and manly.  I remember when my son got a bloody nose in a soccer game while playing goalie and the blood was all over him.  He said, and I quote, “Mom.  Don’t wash the blood out of my uniform.  It makes me look like a bad ass goalie.”  He was like 8 or 10 years old?  Who says that?

My daughter had just gotten a full set of braces and was a little sore.  Like I said, she was tough.  A little ibuprofen and she was good to go.  Despite her weighing maybe 60 pounds, she attacked the soccer ball like she was 6 foot and weighed 185!  She was a forward and was running full speed for the ball, and a defender kicked it with all their might.  One of those kicks where you are hoping to send it all the way down to the other end of the field.  Unfortunately, it really didn’t go far.  My daughter’s mouth stopped it.  Stopped it hard.  She went down.  When I got to her I could see we had a problem.  She was crying, but her mouth wasn’t moving.  Her lips were smashed onto the braces top and bottom.  As I peeled them loose, her lips were like hamburger, and she bled profusely.  She went back in as soon as we could rinse her mouth of all the blood.

“Yes Mr. Dentist, now that I remember, she did get hit in the mouth.”  Thank goodness for the progress of dentistry today.  I ask my daughter, “Would you like to have veneers and white fillings?  Or would you rather be a bad ass soccer forward?”

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