Her Gift (and Baby Teeth)

With family that lives so near, it is nice to recognize the many special things we have to offer one another. For my design questions, I turn to my sister. (If I had an inkling to be more stylish, I would probably turn to her more...). For legal counsel and sound judgement we turn to Brett's father. We go to Brett's mom for our sewing needs: mending, hemming, making a wallet (see, anything goes!). For any of the following: questions about cars, borrowing a tool, removing a splinter, computer problems, strong muscles to lift and move, building a kitchen, identifying snakes, understanding the situation with the Deepwater Horizon, local geography, tying a rope, cutting down a tree, fixing...ANYTHING--we go to Brett.

And for wiggly teeth, we turn to Donna. After years of being a kindergarten teacher's assistant before moving here, Donna became quite the expert in baby teeth. Fortunately, she moved in two doors down from us right before Todd started losing his.

I don't really have a problem dealing with the messiness of children or with the blood that comes because of accidents that are bound to happen. But, as one who has a slight phobia of losing her own teeth (read: my nightmare), pulling my children's teeth is not something I am prepared to do. Ryan injured one of his top baby teeth sometime last year. All seemed fine, but a recent bump caused the tooth to become loose before he lost any of his lower baby teeth. The dentist said that she could see his adult teeth coming in on the x-ray, so there was nothing to worry about.

The tooth had been a little loose for almost two weeks, but a little bump yesterday (during my piano lessons) caused the tooth to loosen more and bleed (quite a bit--and my poor student had to witness!). Blood? No worries. Super-loose tooth? Time to call in reinforcements. We went ahead and started dinner before Donna arrived, but Ryan was struggling and was clearly uncomfortable. A few minutes into dinner, Donna arrived and - *pop* - that tooth was out and ready for the tooth fairy. [Todd, in a quiet aside, asked if Ryan could get $2.00 instead of just $1.00. They are saving to buy a cool Lego set, after all. No secret about the tooth fairy in this house.]

What's great about Donna is that she knows when a tooth is ready to come, and won't pull it before then. And when it's ready, the tooth is out before the kids even know what happened. My boys trust her as the tooth-pulling expert, and I am grateful to have one of those in the family!

I told Ryan that he was officially a big boy. He replied, "So, I'm six now" (even though he knows that his birthday isn't until September). It will take me a little time getting used to seeing my baby with his missing tooth. I was talking to a woman at a chorus rehearsal last week. She talked about her twenty-something year old son who was still her cuddly boy. I told her that my little Ryan would always be my cuddly baby as well. Rat-tail, gap-toothed smile and all.

[We couldn't figure out what my special gift was, though one of the boys offered, "maybe for cooking something." Thanks for the effort.]