Toothless Wonder

Olivia has lost three teeth in the last three or so weeks. The first one was one that was loose for all of a day and a half. She ripped that one out while at school.

The second one was loose FOREVER, so long, in fact, that the adult tooth is completely through. It had come in behind the baby tooth. It drove me nuts for months, but didn't bother Liv at all.

This last tooth, the one she yanked out this evening, I didn't even realize was loose. She's been acting weird about chewing on the left side of her mouth for a week or so but she always told me it was her inner cheek that was bothering her, that she'd bitten it and it hurt. She is a lying liar who lies.

This evening we sat on the couch together to wind down before going to bed and she opened her hand for me. Clenched in her fist was a tooth incased in a silver crown.

I asked her if it had just come out. She nodded. She showed me the place the tooth had previously been in her mouth. The adult tooth is right there, almost even with the surface of her gums. Ick.

I asked her if that tooth had been bothering her for the past week and she'd just said it was her cheek so I wouldn't try and wiggle the tooth for her (I'm guilty of that, more on that in the next couple of paragraphs.) She nodded. Stinker.

There is a fourth tooth that needs to come out. It's on the top right, just above the one that had the permanent tooth emerge behind the baby tooth. This one is lose too and...the permanent tooth is also already through. This time, the tooth came in ABOVE the baby tooth. She looks vaguely vampiric. It's kind of creepy.

Each night, after I brush her teeth, I close the bathroom door and make her let me wiggle, push and kind of twist that baby tooth. I tell her we close the door so no one can hear her scream.

Yes, I'm sadistic. But wait, no. I never actually make her scream. I just say that because she's cute when she says, all outraged, "Mom!"

But I do try and work that tooth for her. She seems perfectly happy to have two teeth where there should be only one.

It shouldn't be long before she's managed to rid herself of all the late moving baby teeth and she joins the world of orthodontia. I hope so anyway. I'd rather not spend another $800 to the oral surgeon to do what I can do behind a closed bathroom door.