Ouch

We had a little boo boo at gymnastics play the other day. Not E. Not S. Me. I was attempting to help E explore the bars. You know, the ones you can hang from upside down. Not bars you have to be 21 to get into. Obviously. I was poised over her ready to help her swing her legs over when all of a sudden she bolted straight up into the air. Her kangaroo jump was blocked by my chin of which she collided with such force that I staggered backwards. The staggering backwards was not helped by the fact that I had 21+ pounds of baby in a backpack. Tears instantly sprang to my eyes from the pain and shock. Of course, I had to immediately make sure E was OK, get a locate on S and try not to fall over on L. They were all fine, but I was not. My lower jaw felt like it had been relocated to somewhere in the vicinity of my eye sockets. I could not fully open or close my mouth. My ear drums hurt. My teeth hurt. There was a clicking feeling when I tried to talk. Just smiling (which I was not doing, but I can imagine) felt disconnected. After the initial ouch! and shock, the feeling was more like when you leave the dentists office- sort of numb and uncomfortable, but it was not necessarily painful. But. I couldnt stop tearing up. I was not crying, per se, but what do you call it when your eyes are watering and your lip is wobbly and you cant talk? That is what was happening. At this point I needed to PULL IT TOGETHER. We had 40 minutes left to play and there was a roomful of people. But. I just felt very much like weeping. I wasn't sure why at the time but looking back I think I felt.... bullied. Beat up. These little people eat the last bite of my snacks, share my pillow all night, pull my hair, wake me up at 2am saying, "Mommmy! Where's my car!", make unbelievable messes, wrap my TV remote in doll clothes so it is missing for 3 days and leave snot trails on the shoulders of my new black sweater when I wear it. And now one of them had quite possibly dislocated my jaw and I would have to drink all my food from a straw from here on out. They were out to get me. Of course I quickly was able to come back to reality. Children. Accidents. All normal behavior. I was still a little bit choked up for a while, an hour and a half to be exact, but that may have been because I was having trouble imagining scheduling an X ray into my week. Later that evening I still couldn't bite my teeth fully together, but my mom was pretty sure that if it was a serious injury I would have a little more pain. The next morning I was good as new. And thankfully, I discovered that, should I ever need one, we have a doctor in our very own house!