We Have A Wiggler!!!

It's a wiggly tooth! No wait...two! Two wiggly teeth. Hold on!! THREE! Three wiggly teeth!!!

I'm not normally on nighttime tooth brushing duty, but I have been regularly examining my 6 year old's teeth for any sort of "wiggliness". I've mainly kept an eye on her two bottom front teeth, as she has permanent teeth coming in right behind them. Yup. Two rows of teeth. "Magical teeth", as we refer to them in her presence.

However, after I flossed her chompers last night, I pulled her in very close. There seemed to be a suspicious amount of more space around the two front ones than what there had been even a week ago. Check that! One top left loosey-goosey pearly white. We squealed. We embraced. We delighted. We danced the Dance of Joy. We spoke of the Tooth Fairy & the preparations she, herself, might have to make before her arrival.

I was so much more excited at that moment than I could have imagined I'd ever be. My own childhood flashed before my eyes. I, too, was 6 years old. It was the summer I turned 7, to be exact. I was missing several in the front & eating the summer delicacy of corn-on-the-cob was a quite chore. At one family get-together, everyone in attendance kidded me. I smiled my toothless grin & kind of enjoyed the challenge that both their comments & my lack of teeth provided. It was that picnic where the Frisbee ended up on top of the roof of my grandpa's house. It was that picnic when I felt such a brief moment of pride as my cousin, 12 years my senior, & tragically killed just this past May, lifted me as high as his arms would extend so that I might triumphantly recover the disc. If I think hard enough, I believe I can even remember what I was wearing. It was that picnic where we watched bats dart about the darkened sky in the warmth of a summer night.

I recalled the taste of blood & the feel of my raw, smooth gums that took the place of my baby teeth as I stroked over the newly formed holes with my tongue. I pictured my parents bending down & gently peering in my mouth, carefully moving my teeth back & forth with great consideration. I shivered thinking of the pesky top front tooth that would not loosen its grip, & only through the help of my dad, finally gave up the fight. I remember attempting to sleep as still as possible the nights I carefully positioned my tiny teeth under my pillow in fear that if they fell on the floor, the Tooth Fairy would not find them.

It is now when I quietly weep over both the mourning of times & people that have already come & gone in my own life, & the pure joy in what is to transpire in my daughter's.

Immediately before this picture was taken, we discovered A's other top tooth loose as well. Immediately after, we noticed a wiggly bottom culprit.

Just for good measure, we needed to check M's too. (No loose ones, BTW. Whew.)