by Shadesdown

Created on: May 21, 2008   Last Updated: May 28, 2008

When my currently 13 year old son was about seven or so years old, he began to experience the knowledge of what it was like for his teeth to become loose and eventually fall out. He was fine with losing his first tooth, and I thought accepted the fact that it was a part of life. But his second tooth began to scare him not knowing what was taking place.

He woke up in the middle of the night and came rushing and crying into my bedroom holding his hand over his mouth. In the dark bedroom, not knowing at that moment what was going on, I jumped out of the bed, turned on the lamp and began to ask him what was wrong.

He continued to cry and scream out loud while refusing to remove his hand from his mouth. I asked him about four times over and over again, what was wrong and I tried to calm him down while attempting to pull his hand away from his mouth. To no prevail, he calms down from his screams and crying long enough to just move his hand away from his mouth enough to speak just a few words. Those words, "Daddy, my teeth are trying to jump out of my mouth!" and the crying resumed.

Instantly I thought that maybe he had had a bad dream or something and I tried to re-assure him that no such thing was going to happen. He in return stood me down and refused to believe that what I was telling him was true.

After a few minutes, I finally got him calmed down enough for him to remove his hand, with still having the fear of his teeth attempting to jump out of his mouth. As I carefully examined his mouth, I noticed that two of his front teeth were very lose and were ready to be pulled and "prepared for the tooth fairy."

I sat him down on the foot of the bed and began to explain to him once again that this was all a part of life and that these two teeth, just like the one before, had to come out. He asked "why? Can't the tooth fairy take other kids teeth first and come to get mine later?" By this point, I had nothing else I could say except, "Some other child must had already made that wish and they are now waiting for the tooth fairy to make her rounds back to them in a few days. I told him that he was becoming a BIG boy and that in order to completely become a big boy, he had to first lose all his baby teeth and that his big boys' teeth were going to follow. His reply - "I don't want to get my driver's license yet!"

After a few moments from laughing, I was able to explain to him that he had many many years before he would have to get his driver's license. Needless to say, before we finally went to bed that night, those two teeth came out after he wiggled, jiggled and lightly played with them. That next morning before school, he found two dollars under his pillow. I on the other hand, had trouble falling asleep because I was still thinking of what he said and could not stop laughing to myself the rest of the night.

It's moments like that, that makes it all worth while, worth remembering and I hold dearest to my heart.

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