She Lost It Without Me

Baby A lost her first tooth when she was a couple months shy of five.  She’s lost a few more since then, and I can’t say I’ve grown to love seeing those super-wiggly teeth.  I *try* to be excited and encouraging, but it takes a lot of acting on my part.

(I do have one rule, that you don’t wiggle your teeth at the dinner table.  I think that’s fair enough…and for the love of dinner…please…just don’t.)

Baby A has recently had a couple of relatively wiggly teeth, as has B (although B has yet to actually lose one).  On Wednesday, I came home to find A’s tooth VERY loose.  I encouraged her to get it out…it seemed ready…but she couldn’t quite do it.

Thursday passed.  And then Friday, I came home from work to see my A with a new twist to her smile. 

My baby girl lost her sixth tooth at school that day.

And I wasn’t there.

I knew it was bound to happen at some point, and I can’t say I missed the actual wiggle-wiggle-wiggle…POP!...but it was bittersweet.

Of course A was giddy.  Her tooth came out in art class.  What did you do, I asked her.  “I raised my hand,” she said, beaming.  The teacher told her to “wait a minute,” and then she got to go to the office.  From the health room, they got a pill bottle (???) and put her tooth in it.  She washed her hands and went back to class.  “Everyone wanted to see it!” she gushed.

I was very proud of A for being such a big girl, and – thinking back to my elementary school days – I can only imagine how *cool* it must have been for her to experience losing a tooth at school.  We celebrated on Saturday with a new bead for her bracelet and an ice cream cone at the Dairy Queen (a very rare treat). 

She even managed to tear into the cone with her snaggle teeth!

Lots of smiles surround this little milestone (some of them more crooked than others), but I can’t think too hard about it.  Loosing teeth is a sure sign of growing up…and handling it without your mommy there seems even more momentous.

Sniff, sniff!!!