This Reminds Me

Julia just lost her first tooth.  It’s been hanging by a thread for days.  Rachel, Lois and Hannah were constantly imploring her to “wiggle wiggle” and pull the darned thing.

What finally happened:  Keith and Julia were playing “tickle tickle” (rough housing) and accidentally knocked it out.  Or so Keith says….

“Zoop, Mama, Zoop!”  We’re not sure if “zoop” is Russian for “tooth,” or if it just sounds good.

To hear fresh-from-the-bath Julia’s explanation of what happened, click here. (NOTE:  AT&T’ers – The corporate firewall won’t let you get to You Tube.  Big sigh.)

Before Julia came home, Hannah read several books about children in Russia.  In at least some parts of Russia, the tradition is to throw the tooth under the bed for a mouse to retrieve.  No way an American Tooth Fairy is squishing Flo and Flossie under bunk beds, straining to find a small white piece of calcium among the dust bunnies.  Julia’s tooth is going under a pillow.

So here is a Tooth Fairy trick:  Place the tooth in a baggie before sliding under the pillow.  Much, much easier extraction later.

I remember Rachel’s first lost tooth.  It happened at church during Sunday School.  We were all so proud.  I wanted to carry the tooth in my wallet – no, she wanted it.  So we troop out to the old green van across the gravel parking lot and Rachel trips.  Falls flat.  The tooth goes flying.  Into the gravel.  We plunk down baby Hannah. Keith, Rachel, toddler Lois and I begin a frantic search for a five-year-old’s tooth among the gravel.  Our friends file out of church; they begin helping.  Soon a dozen adults and equal number of pre-schoolers are all prowling through gravel parking spaces, looking for a speck of calcium.  No luck.  We go home.  Keith returns in the afternoon with a shop vacuum and sucks up the parking spaces where we think it may have landed.  Sifts through it all in the garage.  No luck.  That evening, he and his dad return to replace the gravel – and also run a black light off a portable generator, thinking the tooth will fluoresce.  No luck.  That was just not a lucky tooth.

I need to go wiggle-wiggle in our closet to ensure a Hot Wheels motorcyle is available for late night or early morning placement….