The Loosened Tooth

Jonathan lost is first tooth last week! Safe to say it took us both by surprise. It certainly wasn't the typical, oh my tooth is kind of loose, I'll wiggle it for a few days and then it will gradually fall out kind of loose tooth. One day Jonathan was eating an apple (whole) as part of his lunch. He bit into the core and hit a seed. He told me that he bit into a seed and that it really hurt. Then a second later he was screaming and dripping blood out of his mouth, yelling, "Mommy I think my teeth are falling out!" We rush into the bathroom and take a look in the mirror... seeing the blood for himself only made him more upset. I got him to take some deep breaths and got his mouth cleaned up so we could see what the real damage was. Sure enough one of his bottom teeth was loose. We talked about how this was part of growing up and how another tooth would grow in its place. Kris has been talking to the boys about how they will grow up to be men. One of the parts that they like to talk about the most is those early teenage years when Kris told them their voices will get all weird and screechy (aka puberty), Kris does this great impression that makes them giggle uncontrollably. So Kris reminded Jonathan that loosing this tooth is just part of growing up into a man. I wish I could have gotten video of what happened next. Jonathan sucked in a deep breath, puffed out his chest and in true masculine fashion said to me, "It's ok Mommy, I'm just becoming a man now."

Well it took a few more days of Jonathan playing with the loose tooth before it finally came out. Again it was after lunch, during which he had to have sliced apples (because the whole apple would hurt my Loosened Tooth Mommy, he'd say). He reached in his mouth and pulled it out. He calmly and cool-ly as any almost grown up man would say, "I pulled my loosened tooth out Mommy!" We all cheered and I walked into the other room to get the camera. When I came back into the kitchen Jonathan was closing the door to the garbage can. "What are you doing?" I asked him. He innocently replied, "Throwing my tooth away, it's garbage now." Now we weren't planning on doing the tooth fairy, but I did want to save his tooth for his scrapbook! So I ran to the garbage can and realized that he'd tossed his tooth in on top of a bunch of noodles and rice that I'd just cleaned out of the refrigerator. Groan! Honestly I said a little prayer for God's help because I was all about savoring the memory, but I was NOT willing to dig through the garbage to do so. Then I saw the tooth and was able to use a spoon to scoop it up. After discarding the rice and washing the tooth I was able to get the necessary pictures and gave the 1st Loosened Tooth a special home in a ziploc bag.

My tooth-less boy

The rescued tooth