A Thousand Miles From The Place I Was Born

We’re getting pretty good at pulling teeth in our house lately. Lauren is popping those suckers out at breakneck speed, it seems. And before she went to Hawaii with her Dad a few weeks ago, I discovered that one of her front teeth was VERY ready to be pulled. She disagreed, however, and off to the Big Island she went, front tooth flapping wildly in her mouth. Imagine my surprise when she returned two-plus weeks later with the tooth still dangling from her gums! It was hanging lower than usual and at an angle, and made her look a little like this:

I’ve mentioned before that I have a mild dental phobia (in that I can’t handle the jacked-up grillz, ya’ll) so you can imagine how distressed I was to see my cute little kid turning into a Snaggletooth. Ugh. The tooth had to go! I tried to be aggressive with it, but as it turns out, Lauren has a dental phobia of her own (in that she is completely freaked out at the idea of anyone yanking a tooth from her head and making her bleed.) Go figure.

For a few days, the plan was that she would pull it herself. She tried, bless her heart, but it wasn’t budging. She did look pretty darn cute trying to pull it, however.

Then my lovely sister, Jen, who is my parenting mentor, told me that she always used Baby Orajel on her kids and called it “Sleepy Stuff”. As in, it puts the tooth “to sleep” and makes it sooooo easy to pull. Heck, I’ll try anything at this point, so off to the grocery store I went to procure some Baby Orajel. We tried the magic potion and it did indeed make her mouth feel “awesome”, in her words, but she was still hesitant to pull. I was able to convince her to let me slip a loop of dental floss around it, but then she insisted on leaving it alone and walked around for a full hour with a string of floss hanging from her mouth.

Finally, I was tired of waiting. Under the guise of “removing” the floss, I gave it a swift yank and the tooth came out. I know what you’re thinking and yes, I lied to my child. I set a sneaky little trap and I got her. I know. I saw the look of utter betrayal in her eyes when she realized what was going on. But sometimes, a parent’s gotta do what a parent’s gotta do. And it was relatively pain-free. There was a hell of a lot of blood and screaming, but in the end, Lauren had to admit that it really hadn’t hurt that much.

Lauren has a cute embroidered pillow with a little pocket that the tooth is inserted into, so with all the pomp and circumstance that losing a front tooth warrants, we tucked the little tooth inside and prepared for the arrival of the Tooth Fairy. But there was a little tiny catch. Apparently, when the Tooth Fairy comes to Mommy’s house, she leaves a respectable dollar for the tooth. But when the Tooth Fairy goes to Daddy’s house, she leaves TWENTY DOLLARS. I guess because the Tooth Fairy probably stops at the ATM beforehand and doesn’t think to buy a pack of gum to make change or something. In any event, when we stuck that tooth in the pillow, I tried to prepare Lauren for the inevitable disappointment in the morning. I offered to stash the tooth “someplace safe” so Lauren could take it to her Dad’s in a few days, but she was too excited to wait. Even with the knowledge that she’d be shorted $19.00, this was a big deal. She did ask me if maybe the Tooth Fairy would still pay $20 due to the fact that it was her first front tooth. I had to give her a mini-economics lesson and explain that due to the recession (Thanks again, Dubya), the Tooth Fairy was probably going to be cutting back this year. She nodded and said, “I guess it can get pretty expensive giving every kid $20 for each tooth.” And then I reminded her to not mention to her friends how much she got at Daddy’s house, because maybe the Tooth Fairy didn’t bring them as much. I don’t think it’s a good idea to encourage First Graders in that manner, because next thing you know, they’ll be tying their teeth to doorknobs just to make a buck.

In any event, despite the fact that I lied to her face in order to pull it, and despite the fact that she only made a buck off of it, the whole thing ended up being a momentous occasion for my little girl. Can’t you see the glee???