THE TOOTH FAIRY COMETH

Friday, December 12, 2008

Becca is 6 and three-quarters. She has been watching her friends lose teeth for at least a year.

When Sarah was littler, I worried when she didn't hit the usual milestones. I would wonder... is there something I am doing to cause this delay? Can bad parenting cause a kid to retain their baby teeth somehow? Actually the answer is yes - malnutrition can cause a kid to retain baby teeth. And Becca is about as big as a minute and a half and likes brownies a whole lot. I should feel the tremendous weight of guilt right about now.

But Becca is #2. That means I have come to an understanding that she is who she is. I can barely even help her, I just have to hang out and sort of be her life goalie. Of course this is an exaggeration. I can do lots of things including make her take a bath, teach her how much a quarter is worth, and prevent her from using the toaster.

So really, Becca was alone in her worries about losing teeth. She has been obsessed for awhile with wiggly teeth. She knows if each and every one of her friends has one, and where it's located.

Over fall vacation, she insisted one of her teeth was wiggly. It felt pretty battened down to me. But I went with it.

Then on Tuesday, we were having a relatively quiet evening. It was a night that I had managed to make it home before 8 p.m., the dogs were crashed, Sarah was reading, I was working (um yeah. well at least I was home), and Don was watching some TV.

Becca said, "Wow, my toot is willy wiggwy" (hard to say "th" and "l" and "r" when you have your whole hand in your mouth).

And out of the blue she just yanked it outta there. Sarah sprung to her feet yelling TOOTH EMERGENCY! TOOTH EMERGENCY! The dogs sprung to their feet, barking, certain this meant we were being robbed by German militia and they were failing to secure the border. Don turned some shades of pale. He doesn't like blood.

Oh yeah and she was wearing her Supergirl costume during all this. Random.