Another little milestone

It's been dangling in the middle of T's smile for more than a week. His right front tooth. It's all he has been doing...wiggling and touching and moving it backward and forward. Trying to freak me out with, "Look now Mama!" as he bends it at a 90 degree angle.

Then yesterday afternoon, I asked him if he wanted some help. He had seemed sort of irritated for the past two days and I just couldn't figure out why he was behaving so badly. Kinda like he was over-tired and couldn't tolerate much. A lot of whining. I'd given my offer of help before but he always said, "No thanks." But this time he said OK.

So I took a piece of dental floss and tied it around the tooth. I was pretty scared that it might be better attached than it appeared and when I yanked, it would cause a lot of pain and be a bloody mess---with tears and drama all over the place. We took a picture before the "procedure".....

Then we both wrapped our fingers around the string and yanked together. To both our delight, the tooth came out easily and there wasn't even a drop of blood. T said "Wow, it didn't hurt a bit!" Then, of course, more pictures of his brand new style of smile...

What a doll! I thought I couldn't love that smile any more than I did, but it just got waaaay cuter!

Immediately the cloud that he'd been carrying around disappeared and he was such a happy boy! Maybe that tooth was getting the best of him. And then, there was the tooth fairy's visit to look forward to! He's been really excited about collecting and having lots of money. (Good boy T!) He LOVES to add more in his Piggy Bank (a can with Winne the Pooh printed on it with a slot at the top). I almost thought it wouldn't be fun to use that bank since once it goes in, you can't see it any more. And there's no way to open it. You have to use a can opener to get it open and eventually see what you've collected. But he loves it.

The tooth fairy came just as he'd hoped and she was so impressed with the awesome way he's taken care of it that she gave him a paper dollar bill AND a GOLD COIN dollar with a picture of Hiawatha on it. Plus, his Oma gave him a dollar for his bravery in yanking the took out in the first place. He was very happy to stare at it for a while and then....in it went, into the Pooh bank.

I'm sooo glad it came out before I left on my trip. It's bad enough to leave without him, but it I'd have missed that milestone, I would have had even more heart ache.

Tuesday, I leave for my week long adventure with my 13 year old niece to Kaua'i. It's gonna be a blast.