Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Nothin' But Net


Alyssa loves bounce houses. Our first dance marathon had one set up and I think Alyssa jumped for six hours straight. She jumped so long that her feet and legs hurt for days after.

This past weekend was no exception on the bounce house. She jumped and jumped and jumped. And when she wasn't inside jumping, she was sitting on the ledge on the outside, letting the kids inside bounce her around.

At one point during the dance marathon, I left the girls in the bounce house with Ally and snuck off to the bathroom. Ahh, the joys of peeing alone (even if in public, at least I didn't have to attempt to work around two little girls standing in the stall with me.)

When I ventured back to the bounce house, I found Alyssa looking, hmm, pensive? Alarmed?

I approached her and asked if she was okay.

She said softly, "I think I lost one of my teeth..."

"One of your teeth?" I repeated. "Where? Which one?" None of her teeth were loose enough to have fallen out on their own, at least I thought that was the case.

She opened her mouth and showed me that she was now missing both of her top front teeth.

I asked her where the tooth was.

She shrugged.

I asked where she'd lost it.

She pointed to the bounce house.

I asked, "Were you bouncing when it came out?"

She nodded. She was still a little shocked. The space where the tooth had been was slighly bloody, as is typical when a baby tooth comes out.

We headed back to the bounce house and started looking for a bit of white.

I gave Alyssa a drink of water and asked her if her mouth hurt.

She said it felt weird but didn't hurt.

I told her she'd get used to the missing tooth.

From inside the bounce house Ally asked us if everything was okay. I explained what had happened and that we were looking for the tooth.

She found it and handed it to Alyssa through the netting.

Eventually, Alyssa confessed that she'd been bouncing against the netting, back and forth and ended up in the net face-first. Her tooth had been snagged by the net and yanked out.

Her biggest concern? Her Gram is going to make her sing "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth."

Yes, I had much fun the rest of the weekend singing that song to Alyssa's disgust. Olivia enjoyed my serenade even if Alyssa didn't appreciate my warbling.

And the Tooth Fairie did find her way to our hotel room the night A lost her tooth. That's one resilient Tooth Fairie. Just saying.

Looking at Alyssa these days, with those two teeth missing, I can't help but think of something a good friend from my college days said once, in disgust at another friend who couldn't shut up about corn on the cob (I think that was the reason for his comment. Julie can correct me if I'm wrong.)

"It's hard to eat corn on the cob with no fucking teeth."

Yes....it was funny when I was twenty-three.

And we're hoping that by the time corn on the cob season rolls around again, Alyssa's permanent teeth will have filled that adorable space.

1 comment:

Julie said...

Actually, there was no reason behind the comment other than complete shock value. I wasn't even talking to him. Man, he was one funny guy.