First Tooth

I picked Noah up from school and as he's waiting for me to stop at the red square painted on the sidewalk I notice that another child is talking to him, closely, and the teacher has her arm around him. Then I see his face and he's crying.

At first, I'm worried, but then the teacher opens the door and says, something about his tooth coming out and that he's a little worked up.

A little worked up? He wouldn't stop crying and I couldn't be sure if he hadn't lost his tooth, or he had lost it, or he lost it and then lost for real. He couldn't talk, he barely could buckle his seat belt.

Turns out, his teacher said to him right before he walked out the door that his tooth was ready to come out, now. And handed him a tissue, you know, for the blood. I think that might have freaked him out.

He said he was crying because it hurt so much. I tried to explain that it was sore because of the wiggling and that as soon as we pulled it out it wouldn't hurt as bad. He wasn't hearing it. I was worried it might be a long day.

We get to the sitter's and I pull him up in my lap and just hold him to get him to stop crying. His face is a white as a ghost and there is NO color in his lips. I'm worried he's really sick. So I read him a book and don't worry about the tooth.

In to the sitters we go. She got some new Legos so he went to explore them. After explaining to the sitter what was wrong with Noah, I suggested to Noah that he go look at his tooth. Really so I could see it too, he wasn't letting me anywhere near his mouth. It was sticking straight out, no roots on the back.

I told him it was too loose and that it had to come out because he wouldn't be able to eat his lunch. I tried to reason with him to give me three tries to get it out. That always worked with Eli, but no dice. He's not hearing it.

I took him on my lap, despite his protests and gave a try at the tooth. But I had snagged my thumbnail earlier and it was too short to get a grip on the tooth. I moved him around to try with the other hand. By this time he's about hysterical, but it's about to fall out so I know I can't give up. The sitter offers to help and holds his hands so he can't bat me away, which helps but I still couldn't get it out.

The sitter said I should try to twist it to break that last root but I can't get my hand in there good enough to do that. Now he's jumped out of my grasp, but I'm determined it's coming out before I go back to work. He'll be a basket case the rest of the day if I don't get it out.

I'm thinking "It's a good thing he's not a girl, he'd never make it through labor and delivery."

I grab him again, and he's really fighting me now. I basically wrestle him to the ground and sit on him, but his wirey like me. Natalie holds his hands with one hand and his head with the other and I grabbed ahold of that tooth and pulled-it wasn't budging.

Meanwhile, Jesse is crying because Noah is crying and Simon smacked me because he thinkings I'm hurting Noah.

Natalie looked at me and said, "It's not coming?"

"No, any ideas? It's got to come out."

"It has to be that root in the front, try pushing it back."

So gently with one finger, while I'm sitting on him and he's hollaring, I push the tooth. It just falls right out. "Noah, it's out but it's in your mouth, don't swallow it."

I move and he scrambles up and gets the tooth out of his mouth. Still screaming all the while. Natalie got a papertowel for him, but there was just one drop of blood. He started to calm down, but yikes, the drama of that boy!

I left and went back to work. When I went to pick him up his tooth had fallen out of the plastic wrap it had been wrapped in. We couldn't find it but Natalie was going to look more after we left. Tooth fairy gets the night off tonight.

Now, here he is. His first tooth lost. Let's hope the others aren't quite so dramatic, but I'm not putting any money on it.