SO my baby lost his two front teeth yesterday. The toppers. He has lost three on the bottom already. When those fell out the new, giant, serrated mothers popped up very quickly. It was strange. Plus I felt robbed of the gap. I LOVE THE GAP! My camera was dead yesterday but I promise to add a picture of it after school today. (This pic was snapped by the brilliant wendyb on the sidewalk outside of school one day. She is smart, funny, and incredibly talented. Her blog is on my list. You should peek.)
Miss M had months worth of gap. But she was an aggressive wiggler. She has manipulated out teeth that really should not have come out yet. And even though her teeth have grown in she still has a habit of only biting and chewing with her molars. Well, what else could she do when she spent all of first grade with all 8 front teeth missing?
Big C never wiggles a tooth. He just chews to one side and ignores it until he spits it out one day brushing the teeth around it. Teeth so loose they fall out when he drools. With the first couple he lost, he would press them into the gums instead of wiggling them.
These two teeth of Little C's were just hanging crookedly, flapping like wind chimes when he spoke. They were more fun that way so he was in no hurry to get them out. The first one fell out yesterday morning at home so I sent him to school looking like he lost a fight: his blonde mop was hanging in his face, his cheeks were red with wind burn, his chapped lips were crusty and split, he was missing one tooth, and the remainder was dangling by a thread. Not his best look, but it would seem 5 year old girls have different standards than the mama. It must be those blue eyes. When people ask me where he got them I say, "Paul Newman, but don't tell my husband."
The second tooth fell out at recess. He was just wiggling it, you know, to impress the ladies. But it is cold here and he was wearing mittens. And the tooth fell into the snow. As luck would have it, it landed bloody hole up so he spotted it. He put it in his mitten for safe keeping. When the whistle blew he was walking in and happened to pass Miss M and company on their way out to recess. All of the fifth grade girls gave him a congratulatory hug (which also seems to impress the kindergarten girls) and he gave Miss M charge of the tooth.
Now the tooth was in her mitten while she ran around and dug in the snow. When she got back inside she ignored the safety of her locker, backpack, and pockets. There were too many possibilities for loss or theft in those locations. So she wrapped it in kleenex and put it in her sock. Not tall socks, mind you, but low anklets. She stuffed it in the arch. And the tooth stayed there through the rest of the day, including gym class.
The tooth fairy tucked a crispy $2 bill under his pillow as a rare treat for losing two teeth in one day and saving her a trip. And, as I have signed up for the tooth-buy-back-program, I have purchased the pair of choppers for my collection. (I will fill you in on our tooth fairy lore sometime.)
But the funny effect of his classroom celebrity yesterday (loosing a tooth is a BIG deal) was some lingering appeal with the ladies. Moose took the kids to school this morning, and the report is this: there was a little bundle of girls waiting for Little C inside the front door. They giggled and cooed their hellos at him. He gave them a casual side-nod and half a smile--a maneuver any high school boy would have to practice in the mirror for hours comes naturally to Little C. Moose walks him to his locker and continues on to talk to Miss M's teacher. When he comes back, little C is almost done putting his shoes on and there is one little girl, leaning on the desk in the hallway and making doe eyes at him (picture that scene from Bambi). This is how it plays out:
Girl: (in a sing-song way) C, I know how to spell your name. [She spells it slowly, lingering on the vowels]
Little C: [stands, picks up his folder with an air of nonchalance]
Moose: C, do you know how to spell her name? [Asking only so he could tell the mama which little girl was doing the flirting.]
Little C: [Gives his dad a look to indicate that he is now quite certain that his dad is, in fact, an utter moron and would do well to stay out of it. He knows how to handle this. He went to preschool.]
Then the boy, with an air of Cool Hand Luke about him, breezes past them both and into the classroom. The pig-tailed doll spins and follows.
It is getting harder to hide the evidence of my whole Paul Newman episode. But don't tell Moose.
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