A couple of weeks ago I randomly asked, “Eliza, do you have any loose teeth?”
I put my finger on one of your lower teeth, figuring those are the first to go. To my surprise, it easily bent backwards.
“You have a loose tooth!” I said.
You replied with wide, excited eyes, felt for the tooth and confirmed, “I have a loose tooth! I have a loose tooth!” Immediately sentimental, I grabbed my nice camera and took a portrait of your current smile with all the baby teeth that will take their place under pillows in time.
Since the news broke, you have been working that tooth like a puppy on a bone, consistently wiggling it with your finger or tongue. Your new adult tooth also emerged behind it, truly double the size of your baby tooth, and resulting in temporary stadium-seating teeth.
Loosing a tooth has been an initially exciting event. You’ve talked about friends who have lost teeth and joining their ranks. You’ve been asking about and drawing the Tooth Fairy, which looks something like Tinkerbell. You’ve told us that each child has their very own Tooth Fairy that brings them something special. Yours brings jewelry, I’m told. I think she shops at Kohl’s.
All of the initial excitement and curiousity has turned to anxiety and fear in the last two days that loosing the tooth has become reality. You asked Mom what the red stuff was on a banana you were eating, and she told you it was blood from the tooth. Since the banana incident, the realization is all too real and you’ve shifted to protecting the tooth instead of trying to lose it. That once-shiny white tooth is turning pale blue, and blue means it’s time for the main event.
While you are in guarded-puppy-mode, your Mom and I have entered into our own instincts as we plot how to remove the tooth in its final days. I remember when I was losing my first teeth how my parents hounded me trying to get access. Any trust I had in them was meaningless as I was sure they were just trying to pull on my tooth. Of course, there were and eventually did.
It all comes full circle as your Mom and I try countless ways into convincing you how we need to check on your tooth with a paper towel or floss. Matteo has suggested, from his encyclopedic knowledge of AFV, that we do as he saw on TV and tie the tooth to a string and slam a cupboard. We’ll save that trick for him as he’s so inclined. To that end, the personalities really come out when loosing teeth. I was hesitant about losing teeth and a little scared like you as a kid. As for your Mom, she says she would bang her teeth against countertops trying to loosen them in the first place. To each their own. And you don’t need to know that your Mom has been trying to pull the tooth out with tweezers while you sleep open-mouthed at night. You’d be too scared to ever fall asleep!
Because you and I are on the same emotional wavelength, I’m trying to reassure you everything will be OK. No hurry. This too shall pass and fall out. Then the next tooth, and the next one. And you’ll look back one day with adult teeth and all of that Kohl’s jewelry and wonder why it was all such a big deal.
Love,
Dad