Loose Tooth
July 11, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
A big little thing happened tonight.
It was past 10pm; Charlie had reached for his dryer-warm polar bear blue blanket from the laundry basket and spread it over his bed, wrapped himself up burrito-style in his big “daddy blue blanket” (so called because it was originally a present to Jim some three or so Christmases ago), and positioned his ear buds in his ears, with the iPod to the left of his pillow (this is the Place of Honor, as it was once where Charlie positionined his “I say 100 things!” Barney). I have started to teach summer school and was looking up vase paintings of Homer’s Iliad and thinking about what rage led Achilles to drag Hector’s body around the walls of Troy when I heard,
“Loose tooth.”
I went into Charlie’s room. It happens that he has his 6-month dental check-up next Tuesday—Charlie has become very fond of having his teeth flossed thanks to these devices—-so I figured that if anything was wriggling that ought not to be (like one of Charlie’s top front permanent teeth which has grown in at a slant), we could ask the dentist. “Loose tooth,” said Charlie. He took my right hand, found my index finger, and placed the tip on what I realized was the tooth in question. “Mom! Tooth.”
“Yes, it’s loose,” I said, feeling utterly unhelpful. “It’ll come out when it’s ready.” “Tooth,” said Charlie. “It will,” I said. Charlie tucked his right hand behind his head, an old gesture of comfort, and turned towards the iPod: “Turn on!”
Loose teeth have always confounded Charlie: He cannot seem to stop touching and wriggling at them once loose, and so there have been more than a few times when I have turned around to see Charlie with a small bit of red on his mouth and sometimes holding a now loosened tooth. Once I mistook the tooth for a bit of food and told Charlie to put it in the garbage, which he did; he then kept saying to me “help, fix! help, fix!” until I realized that a tooth had fallen out—it was still visible in the garbage and I retrieved it—-Charlie took the tooth, put it in the new gap on his gum, and said again, “help, fix!” (What could I say; not even the Tooth Fairy could orchestrate such a repair.)
Tonight was the first time Charlie had told me in advance about a loose tooth and, even more, showed me which one will soon be coming out.
I think the Tooth Fairy may have to provide a small bonus this tooth around.
Photo courtesy of MBK via Flickr
I’m glad to hear Charlie’s dealing so well with loose teeth. We’re not there yet but I’m apprehensive at best about how Patrick will react. He thinks daddy can ‘fix’ anything…
Wow- great communication Charlie!!! He has grown up so much in the past year.
Yep! John has now lost several teeth and the “really loose” stage always causes several days of agony. Brushing is almost out of the question. Charlie has certainly been making some progressive steps in several areas. Go Charlie!!
Charlie sounds like a wonderful child. Every step is progress. The blue blankie? Amigo has one, too.
The loose tooth thing! One of mine has banned the tooth fairy from entering the house [some sort of illegal intruder as far as he is concerned] The little one is like a cat on a hot tin roof for the duration of the ‘loose’ period, followed by explosive and ‘death’ when then darned thing comes out. But what can you expect from Brits and the bl%%dy teeth!
Cheers
Lola is not there yet, but big brother has lost 2 teeth already. Unlike Charlie (and me as a kid), though, big brother will not TOUCH his loose teeth. In fact, we only discovered the first one because his permanent tooth had grown in behind it! He’s afraid of the pain, so he says. He’s also afraid of the tooth fairy – something about her messing around with his pillow while he sleeps. We fixed the problem by putting the tooth in a special drawstring bag which hangs over his doorknob. I mean, he still wants his money…
Charlie has never taken to the notion of the tooth fairy—–he’s too distracted by that new gap in his mouth!
Oh my goodness. I used to wiggle and pull at the loose ones, too. It felt kind of interesting; not quite good but not bad either. I’ve often wondered how Nik is going to respond when the time comes. Meanwhile, I am picturing a gap-toothed Charlie grinning…priceless!
Brendan’s response to loose teeth was to worry them until they came out, no matter the pain involved. The dentist once told us a tooth wouldn’t be out for a “few more weeks” & it was out the next day… The good news is that he’s done with this phase! Last tooth came out (the one that was supposed to take weeks) right after braces were scheduled to go on the remaining ones.
The tooth fairy never caused any problems, although we did need an IOU once for a swallowed tooth… & he’s retained a few to redeem at a future, cash-strapped moment. (Shakes head in wonder…)
I was wondering how the braces were going—-a secret stash of loose teeth, my goodness……
mumkeepingsane, I know how that goes — I’m the “fixer” here, and given how Sam used to react to broken cookies, I’m not looking forward to his losing his first tooth!