Thursday, July 18, 2013

Annika's First Missing Tooth

On Tuesday (July 16, 2013), Annika reached a childhood milestone: she lost her first tooth.

To be exact, she didn't truly lose it, but it is no longer in her mouth. After dinner, she came up to Eric and me and said that she felt a cavity. Quite perplexed, I asked her to show me. Instead of seeing a hole in her tooth, I saw her demonstrated the ability to basically pull so far back on her loose tooth that we could see its underside. Yeah.... definitely time for it to come out.

As soon as we told her it was time for the tooth to come out, she freaked. The idea of it completely set the poor girl into mountains of fear and anxiety. We tried to calm her down, but no to avail. Eventually, though. with the help of many deep breathing sessions and the promise to let her have music playing through her headphones during the procedure, she agreed to let Eric pull her tooth.

It took a try or three for Eric to get a good grip on that wee little tooth, but one he did, it popped right out. Once it was out, Annika became the most excited girl history has ever seen. She was beaming and bounding ... proclaiming that she's such a big girl now. We were amazed by how she reacted to her lost tooth.... especially considering we were doing some serious breathing exercises just a few minutes before.

Needless to say, Annika rushed to put her tooth in the tooth pillow we'd made. About an hour later, it was time for bed. She was still buzzing with excitement, but did get herself to sleep ... I'm sure it was quite a feat for her to even close her eyes.

The next morning, she was greeted with a golden dollar and a note from the Tooth Fairy. We were greeted with the same excitement, energy, and enthusiasm we'd witnessed the night before. Conor was feeling a bit left out by this point, so he began announcing that his teeth were loose, too.  (Nice try, little man.)

We explained to her that a dollar is worth 100 pennies; after arriving at school, she showed one of her teachers the hold her tooth left behind and proclaimed "the Tooth Fairly gave me 100 dollars!!" I quickly jumped on that and corrected her that she, in fact, got a dollar that was worth 100 pennies. (The Tooth Fairy would be broke by the time our kids baby teeth were all gone if that was the case... OY!)

Annika has another loose tooth and, now that the first tooth is gone and she realizes it isn't traumatic to loose a tooth, she can hardly wait for it to come out. I think we have a few more weeks, though.

I'd like to note that while the idea of our baby girl being old enough to lose her teeth did stab me in the gut a bit, I was able to control myself and not cry about it. (Mom win!!)


Toothless in Seattle



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