Snaggletooth

Last night was interesting. I was totally unprepared for what would happen.
Maybe not totally unprepared, as I did have a teeny tiny bit of a heads up.

No...I was still totally unprepared.

On Friday, Ruthi exclaimed to me, "MOMMY! I THINK ONE OF MY TOOTHS IS ABOUT TO FALL OUT OF MY MOUTH!!!"

I checked said tooth for wigglyness.

I only felt her head wiggle. The tooth appeared, to me anyway, completely tight with no signs of being loose any time soon.

Fast forward to Saturday evening. We were all hanging out on the couch.

Ruthi jerked back and the sound of her nightgown ripping out of her mouth filled the air. The look on her face indicated it did not feel good at all.

Her Daddy looked at her as she held her hand to her mouth and said, "I bet that didn't feel good!"

A second later I hear, "I feel my tooth." And when I took a peak, there was blood in the place where her tooth used to be.

My first thought was - Oh great - she has gone and broken her tooth. On a Saturday night, when I can't get a hold of a dentist.

And then I went into "I have no idea what to do about this" mode. Not freaking out, but close.

Chip looked at me and said something to the effect of, "Seriously? You don't know what to do? What if I were at work? What would you do? Tell me you wouldn't call 911!"

I assured him that I would NOT call 911 over a tooth. I knew better than that. (I'm would NOT be suprised if he's responded to a call from a frantic mother not knowing what to do if a tooth came out unexpectedly.)

I took Ruthi to the bathroom where I could access the damage. I was still expecting to find have a tooth in her mouth. We had not located the tooth at this point, so I just wasn't sure.

I had her rinse and it looked like the entire tooth had come out. Chip went back to the couch and located the tooth.

The totally intact tooth. Thankfully.

Maybe, just maybe, that tooth had been a little bit loose after all!

She was a bit freaked out and the thought of eating or brusing her teeth terrified her after that! But after some tears, she calmed down and realized it wasn't so bad after all.

Then she got excited about the prospect of the Tooth Fairy visiting.

That's when I felt it was time to have a little talk with her. This was a talk I didn't think I'd have to have for another year, when I expected the natural time to lose her first tooth would be.

Long story short, we talked about the feasibility of someone flying around and coming into people's houses at night and leaving things under pillows. I let her figure it out, that it was really mommies and daddies who are leaving surprises.

This let me to the Santa discussion as well. The letting her believe in Santa was never really a plan. We never did Santa with CJ and assumed we wouldn’t with any other children. But it just kind of happened, and we played along to an extent. We didn’t go all out, and we certainly didn’t try to keep her from finding out the truth. But we never really planned it either.

And I was certain this Christmas that she would figure it out on her own when she realized that her stack of presents were simply the ones that had been under the tree and had just gotten moved into a nice little pile. I was totally prepared that morning for the conversation.

But it didn’t come up.

So I brought it up last night. I let her come to the conclusion with a little help from me. She thought it was kind of funny. I told her that there’s nothing wrong in believing for fun, and we can continue to do that, but I wanted her to know the truth.

And most importantly, she assured me that she knew that, “Jesus and God are real!”

I felt much relief going to bed last night. And Chip was greatly relieved. He was always careful to word things in a way that she could not come back and say, “But Dad, YOU said……” But yet he still let her have fun with it. We both are like that, but it’s very difficult. Now we don’t have to worry about that anymore.

Something tells me that when Christmas comes around again, she will still want to tell Santa what she wants and leave out milk and cookies, and reindeer food…but she will know this time it’s all in fun. And I like that!

Anyway…here’s a couple of pictures of my little girl with a now toothless smile.

Here, she's holding her tooth:

And now she's putting it under her pilow (in a baggie to keep it from getting lost). Yes, she knew it would be me putting a surprise under there, and it was just as much fun for her.

And this morning, she came to my side of the bed with her suprise in her hand. She actually thought before she went to sleep last night that she might forget about it. She didn't!

She came in and said, "Mommy, it's Sunday! Let's go to church!" (We've been embarrassingly bad about not making it to church on Sunday mornings. She is exactly what we needed to start getting back on track!) And she probably wouldn't have even mentioned the "Tooth Fairy" treats had I not asked what was in her hand!

She knows what's important. I love that girl!