Welcome...Tooth Fairy

Last Thursday was a milestone day in our family--Titus lost his first tooth! Of course it is not your typical process, which I've come to accept that atypical IS our typical, because we did not have a clue his tooth was loose. That's right...no clue! We all got up and went through our normal frantic push to get everyone out the door all in as good a mood as possible, and when we got to school it wasn't five minutes that I got a call to come back to the preschool office. I wasn't expecting to hear that my son was goign to lose a tooth, didn't even cross my mind. Kendra met me in the hall, "Titus has something to show you." Great...what's happened. Did he sharpie on the wall? Did he build "somefing" that destroyed something else? What coudl it be. Then I saw his face. It was the face of a child who is beaming--bursting with pride. I could tell this was big..a big deal to my boy. He slowly walked up grinning like a chesire cat and said, "my tooth is loose!" "Your tooth is loose? Which one?" He showed me and what do you know is was not only loose it was wiggly! How did we miss a wiggly tooth?

"We are going to have an activity and pull it Dad. I'm going to tie a string to it then tie the other end to the door and SLAM it!" Ms. Patti, his teacher quickly put the kibosh on that. I knew that this tooth would consume him and this tooth would get no relief--sure enough by lunch the tooth was gone. There was one minor emergency when Titus was showing off his tooth and dropped it on the flloor-losing it...for the second time! His entire class and our custodian were crawling on the ground looking for the lost tooth which was found. His tooth is itty bitty, so it was hard to find.

I had just under six hours to figure out how the Tooth Fairy would visit our house. Since we are going to be dealing with some 60 teeth I didn't want to start some precident I wasn't prepared to repeat SIXTY times! I've heard of some folks who sprinkle glitter on the pillow and window seal of their child's room to show the fairy has come and gone--great idea! I didn't have glitter. Being a Children's Minister I've come to hate glitter because children+glitter=Diasaster! I have a $500 Wool Suit with a permanent glitter mark on the pants leg because some snivler slammed into my leg with glue covered glitter. I'm not goign to get on my soap box, which will be hard to do--resist...resist...resist. I think I'm over it. I also wanted to buy gold $1 coins and put a gold coin under his pillow--didn't make it to the bank. I may still go the coin route, I really like that idea. I can do that 59 times!

In the end, I took the path of least investment...a dollar bill under the pillow and a tooth in my underwear drawer with the pacifier that was Titus' favorite "passie." I'll keep that first tooth forever and it will be in my underwear drawer right along side the other precious things. Any of you who wonder where Dad's stash precious things..check the underwear drawer first you are sure to find a treasure trove!

The next tooth is loose, but not wiggly loose so we have some warning that it's on it's way out. His first tooth to come out was the lower Central incisor, and other central incisor is the one loose now. These were his first teeth in, do you loose teeth in order of their "eruption?" I read a dentist website that said teeth erupt! Doesn't that sound harsh and painful--Eruptions! Our pediatrician in Fort Wroth, "Dr. Ghee" said teeth itch when they are...erupting. I thought that was interesting..how does one come to know that teeth itch? Was there someone who actually remembered getting their first teeth in and saying, "boy those suckers were itching like crazy! I couldn't wait for them to erupt!" Just how to doctors come up with this stuff?

We've had the hardest time getting Titus into a routine of brushing his teeth in the morning and at bedtime, jsut a battle. I've off handedly told him that the tooth fairy pays more for clean, brushed teeth, than she does for dirty unbrushed teeth. Maybe that will work. When he gets up in the morning he has some stanky breath, it's oppressive to say the least. It smells like something has literally died in his mouth. Any hints on helping us get through this milestone woudl be apprecaited.

Don't worry, there aren't 59 more, "We've lost another tooth!" posts coming your way. I will for sure post on Levi's first tooth and Teensy's first tooth but those will be several years away..so there's time.