She met the dentist today and returned victorious.

No cavities. Just perfect, white, shiny, cute, little-girl teeth. It turns out the pain she was having in her mouth over Christmas was some new molars coming in. And the x-rays revealed that she’ll soon be losing one of her front teeth. There’s something amazing about bones growing and moving and changing like that.

What is it about bones falling out of a child that make you notice your little one is growing up?

Of course she was absolutely giddy with excitement. The first thing she told me when she got home, leaping out of the car and clapping her hands in excitement, was that she would have a loose tooth soon. She’s been bemoaning the fact that all of her friends have had a tooth fall out, that everyone in kindergarten has already lost a tooth, that she’s practically a poor, miserable, gimp because she’s the only girl in the whole world who hasn’t lost a tooth yet.

She’s totally craving that hillbilly “look.”

It’s definitely going to be a big change. Usually change is gradual, subtle. There’s nothing subtle about a tooth falling out of your head. That gap-to-be in her smile is nothing less than a ginormous sign that she will soon be leaving us to run off to college or spend a year travelling the world or – horror – get married.

I hate the dentist.

Comments

1. alexia on 2006-01-05 11:10:30 wrote: Can’t wait to see the photos of this momentous occasion! :)

2. maiylah on 2006-01-10 18:27:51 wrote: my son just lost a tooth, too, two days ago. horrors… getting married, huh… :p

3. Carla on 2006-01-11 13:38:46 wrote: That’s why the most charming quality of Peter Pan, mentioned over and over in the novel, is that he was at that perfect age where he still has all his pearly baby teeth. :)

4. Carla on 2006-01-11 15:43:39 wrote: It�s me, again. :D Found an example�end of chapter one:

   She started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at once that he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy had been there we should have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling�s kiss [the kiss in the corner of her mouth that she will not grant to anyone]. He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth. When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her.

5. Ali on 2006-01-12 06:40:22 wrote: I realy enjoyed your writhing.you are realy ful of emotions and it is not comon in omputer programers! I am a dentistery student And iI realize why You hate me!

6. Jason on 2006-01-13 12:42:05 wrote: Nothing worse than the dentist. We’re currently in the stag of watching Anna’s first teeth arrive. I’m not looking forward to dentist days. :)

7. Cisco on 2006-01-16 13:10:20 wrote: Find the book called: Tooth Trouble by Abby Klein- Ready Freddy! series.. you will crack up.

8. Jordan E. on 2006-01-24 17:57:17 wrote: Looks like Sunny Baudelaire is more realistic than I thought.

9. cj on 2006-01-27 14:45:34 wrote: :) Well… I remember when my stepdaughter was that age and I feared that she was going to grow up too quickly. I thought I’d share that on an upside the teenage girl years go by REAL SLOW…. REAL SLOW. (at least the bad days do)