I was standing in the kitchen when I heard Lil say oops at the sink. She was pouring out the bit of milk left in her cup so she could finish cleaning up her dishes from her afternoon snack. I walked over and asked what was wrong. She informed me that she had been hiding her mouth since lunch (something I hadn’t noticed) because she was pretty sure that her apple (which was cut into the thinnest of strips) had broke her tooth and she didn’t want me to see. I ask her to show me and low and behold she didn’t break her tooth, she lost it. I asked her where the tooth was and she informed me that it was in the sink, but not to worry, it was too big to go down the sink stopper so it was sitting there. I was so caught up in the fact that my baby had lost her first tooth that it just now occurred to me that I didn’t know if it was in the sink because she was trying to get rid of it and the oops that started it all had been because she accidentally dropped it in the sink or if it was because she realized she was busted because it wouldn’t go down the drain. Oh well, either way I would have noticed the hole in her teeth eventually.
After thoroughly examining her mouth I made her some warm salt water and we headed to the bathroom to swish her mouth out*. I walked out of the bathroom to get something else and when I got back Lil was in tears. When I asked what was wrong she informed me that she didn’t like how she looked with the hole and wanted to be 4 again because she didn’t loose teeth when she was 4. I did my best to hug her and assure her that she was still beautiful, all kids go through it and I thought the hole was cute.
Once she was calmed down from that I had to convince her to swish with the salt water. This took some doing, but somehow I said the right thing and it happened without any further drama. Then I made her pose for some pictures, because that’s how I roll. She had made me swear not to share the pictures I took so I’m just going to note here that it’s her bottom left front tooth.
She assured me that she had not noticed the tooth loose at all before lunch today and that she was in no pain. This evening while she was getting ready for bed she informed me that the holes next door neighbor was now loose. I checked and it only wiggled a tiny bit, but this is the start of a whole thing. One that I have been looking forward to and dreading all at once.
*After telling Waldo about all of this I don’t know if the salt water was necessary (because he said he never did anything like that) I’m still going with it. I mean she now had a openish wound in her mouth and I want to make sure it’s clean. Also when Waldo’s Dad had a tooth pulled he was told to swish with warm salt water so we are going to be doing this for a few days.
