Tooths!

Megan shows off her space---"grown up teeth" included---and her loot!

This has definitely been a week for teeth at our house! Megan lost her first tooth...and her second tooth! The first tooth came out this past Tuesday (October 4). It was a long time coming! Megan has long been lamenting the fact that she was practically the last kid in her class to lose a tooth. When the dentist told her a few months ago that her bottom two teeth were starting to get loose, she was ecstatic (even though the looseness was completely imperceptible). Over the past few weeks they definitely became visibly wiggly. More recently, the permanent teeth below them became visible, and have even started pushing the baby teeth forward. All this time, Megan was very excited, and kept wiggling away. She proudly showed the wiggly teeth to anyone who cared (and many who didn't). Her teacher, Mrs. Geurink, even gave her a darling book to read, called "Molly and the Slow Teeth," about a girl in a similar situation.

By Monday, it was looking like the big day was imminent. On Tuesday, I implored Bill to PLEASE pull the tooth. I did not want this job. Loose teeth give me the heebie jeebies, and I never even wanted to pull my own as a kid. I wanted Bill to get it out because I didn't want to have to do it Wednesday when he was working late, and I didn't want Megan to lose it at school and freak out (for example, if she swallowed it in her lunch...can you imagine what our anxious, neurotic little girl would do if there was no tooth for the tooth fairy?). So...after dinner, Bill and Megan retreated into the bathroom. I don't know what went on in there, but after some brief yelling (Megan, not Bill), they emerged with a tooth! It was the bottom front left side one. We read "The Night Before the Tooth Fairy," a story book I've been saving for this occasion, and placed the tooth in the little pink pillow Bill and I bought for Megan when she was just a baby. And the tooth fairy did not disappoint! She left Megan with a shiny gold dollar coin for her very first tooth.

We knew the other bottom front tooth would follow quickly, because the permanent teeth were strong-arming it out. And this one didn't even end up needing any coaxing! Megan is fond of telling people that "Daddy knocked my tooth out," but this is how it actually happened: Friday (10/7) night, Bill was tucking Megan into bed. He was playing around and tucked the blanket up under her chin, into the neck of her shirt. He must have bumped her in the mouth. Very soon after, Megan was feeling the space with her tongue and noticed that it was bigger than before. The tooth had gotten bumped right out of her mouth! A frantic few minutes then ensued, with us trying to find the tooth in Megan's bed. Not surprisingly, Megan was quite freaked out at the prospect that the tooth might not be found. (Exactly why I didn't want it to come out at school!) Luckily, with a little searching of the sheets, we found the tooth. Therefore the tooth fairy was able to make a return visit to our house just three nights after the first visit. This time, she left a paper dollar! Megan was pretty excited about that too.

She's very proud to show off her space now, and to point out that she has grown up teeth there already. I'm not quite sure just how those big teeth are going to come in and fit in that tiny little mouth of hers. I think her bottom teeth are going to fall like dominoes in the next few months, but time will tell.

In a little postscript to this story, tonight I was feeling around in Daniel's mouth after yet another "bite-attack" of his....he loves to bite our arms, face, neck...whatever he can get his mouth on....thank goodness he doesn't bite me when I'm feeding him, though! There, just barely poking through his gum on the top left side, is another tooth! Daniel got his two bottom teeth within a week of each other in June and has since had no sign of any more whatsoever...until tonight! This reminds me of "The Night Before the Tooth Fairy," because in that story, the little boy loses a tooth and his baby brother gets his first tooth right afterward! And here at our house, life has imitated art---two little teeth out, one little tooth in...all in a week's time!