Leah's Lost Tooth

At the end of Leah's first grade year, I asked her how she liked 1st grade. She said she loved it except for the fact she didn't ever get on the "tooth board." When kids would loose a tooth, they got to go up on a bulletin board. She was probably the only one in the entire grade level who hadn't lost a tooth! I told her eventually, they will come out.

After summer came and went, I was wondering if she would ever loose her baby teeth. Part of me didn't really care if she ever did, because she looked so darn cute with her tiny little teeth. It kept her looking more like a baby, and let's face it, loosing teeth is somewhat of an awkward looking stage for kids. I finally took her to the dentist to make sure everything was OK. He confirmed that everything was fine and her big teeth were there and that it would happen.

She used to tell me, "Mom I have a lose tooth!!!" I would check and have to tell her, "Honey, it's not loose." Darn.

Until one day, it was finally loose! She was 7 and a half!

Now that is was loose, you'd think she'd want that thing out so the tooth fairy could come. NOPE. Now that it was about to fall out she was nervous and didn't want it to come out. All this hype and she became scared to pull it. The thing was barely hanging on!

My parents decided to take the kids to the marina to watch the parade of lights in December. I get this picture in the morning....

She was so excited and I was too! She waited so long, it fell out while she was brushing her teeth and didn't even notice it! She realized later when she was looking in a mirror. My mom had to search the bathroom floor for the tiniest tooth. She found it and put it in a zip-lock bag.

When we got there later for the parade, she wanted to show us her tooth. My mom and Bobby both told her to wait until later so we didn't lose the tooth. So, she did what any smart girl would do and she went and asked Grandpa to get her tooth.

"Sure!!" he said. She came and showed it to me. It was so tiny, I could barely see it in the bag! We all made a huge deal about it and she was so happy. I'm not sure what happened from point A to point B, but when we went to leave later....we couldn't find the damn tooth.

We searched high and low all over my dad's boat. She starts crying because she had waited so long to loose that tooth and now she didn't have one to put under the pillow! I felt like a super bad mom! How could I misplace her first tooth! Bobby and my mom continued to say how they knew it'd get lost and they said to not bring it out, blah, blah, blah. We check the trash. No where to be found.

After an hour of looking, Bobby draws the line and says we will just have to write the tooth fairy a letter. Leah is bawling her poor little eyes out. Someone says they took the trash to the main dock trash and maybe it got put in there. Bobby is like, "Hell no! We are not dumpster diving for the tooth!"

I feel awful and am so dumpster diving for her tooth. He is so annoyed, Leah is still crying and I feel like crap.

We go and of course Bobby tells me he will be the one to go look in the trash for the tooth. What a guy! We wait in the car with our fingers crossed that the tooth will be found. He walks back to the car....

empty handed.

It's over. The tooth fairy will be getting a note from Leah.

We leave and Leah is still so sad. About ten minutes into the drive, we get a call from my dad. I answer, "Please tell me you found the tooth."

He said "Yep!"

Come to find out, I set it on the bed next to the kitchen. My mom went to put the hot dogs away in a zip-lock bag. She took one out and then saw the one on the bed and thought she had already took a bag out. As she laid in bed, she remembered the bag and thought that it must have been the one with the tooth. She gets up, looks in the hot dog bag and there was the dang tooth!!

Leah decides to wait for the next day when we get the actual tooth, so she can actually put it under the bed. She waited so long to have this experience, I felt for her!

She has now lost her second tooth. We won't soon forget her first tooth though! We joke with her telling her tooth really wanted to eat one more hot dog before the tooth fairy took it. Phew. Almost really messed that one up!