An Apple And Some Floss

On Gabi's 6th birthday, she discovered, to her wonderful excitement, that she had a loose tooth. Now, loose is all relative. It was barely noticeable, but she had been waiting for this for a year! It was, to her, the most exciting and amazing thing.

But, then came the boring part... the wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait...wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait...

Well, you get the picture! In with all that waiting comes the pain... every so often she'd find it hurt to eat a carrot stick. Then it was would hurt to bite a cookie. It was always something different, and with the tooth being in the front, she'd not be able to eat something one time, but have no trouble the next (being that she learned to use just her back teeth for this).

So, as the rest of the family patiently endured the numerous complaints of "when is it going to fall out", she finally let it go and didn't bring it up again..... Until last night! She was eating an apple. A nice, ripe, juicy apple as a wonderful way to tie up her dinner!

Suddenly she exclaims "Ouch!" and then walks to the trash to throw away her apple. It was not finished by any standard (or at least not mine) and I told her she needed to finish it. So she explained that it hurt and she couldn't. As she did this, I noticed blood in her mouth and asked her if I could see her mouth. She came to be telling me her tooth hurt and it seemed more wiggly.

Sure enough, the tooth was about half way unattached. I didn't tell her that, but I did tell her that it would likely fall out sometime this week. I also started think about what kinds of soft food I could send to school for lunch so she wouldn't end up swallowing the tooth if it came out at school!

She proceeded to the bathroom, because she noticed blood on her finger after wiggling it. That's when she noticed it was hanging some and looked crooked. She wanted to know if there was a way we could just "take it out". To which I told her there was, but it might hurt. And Bob added "It will certainly hurt."

She wasn't too interested at that point and decided she'd wait for it to fall out by itself. Evidently, she changed her mind after she'd gone to bed (and me too - since I'm trying to catch up from vacation). She and Dad went in search of something to tie to her tooth. All the while, to my understanding, with a reminder that if the tooth wasn't fully ready to come out that it would hurt when they did it. They found themselves in the bathroom, with the dental floss......I think the picture tells the rest!

Anyway, a very excited and happy Gabi came up to wake me and tell me she'd finally lost her tooth... and it didn't hurt at all! Another milestone marked! She's now joined the ranks for the toothless... and at school, that's a good thing! :)