Category Archives: Teething
Ouch.
Signs that your kids are watching too much Mythbusters.
It all began when I overheard the following statement: “Okay Porter, now don’t scream when I do this.”
Watching Porter’s front teeth twist and turn over the last weeks has been an infinite source of family entertainment. He has been guaranteed that at least one of us throughout the course of the day will walk up to him and ask, “hasn’t one of those teeth fallen out YET?” Myself included – which you think I’d be a little more sensitive about considering I was asked “haven’t had that baby YET?!” about 600 bazillion times with both of my insanely overdue pregnancies. But I digress.
So ANYWAYS, teeth. Loose. Insanely loose and crooked. There were days when I would look in the rear-view mirror of the car and see my son’s face with a single tooth resting atop his lower lip. Kinda like this (but in place of the bird is his nasty smelling blanket):
I tried to do some documenting the evolution of this process on my own:
Flash forward to yesterday.
Stella had finally reached her limit. Action needed to be taken. And big sisters can be very persuasive. Her plan involved one packet of purple embroidery thread from her friendship bracelet kit, one remote control all-terrain vehicle, and a whole lot of trial and error. Once she had successfully a.) gotten Porter’s buy-in, b.) figured out how to successfully attach the string to the tooth and the remote control car, and c.) gunned the car with just the right amount of slack in the line, she achieved her goal:
I still laugh each and every time I look at this photo. The blood. The look of victory on Stella’s face. The look of I-Don’t-Know-How-She-Convinced-Me-This-Was-A-Good-Idea on Porter’s face. It pretty much tells the entire story all by itself.
Mixing it up a little
Another hand of the clock has ticked, which means Stella has lost yet another tooth. The other top front one, to be exact. At the pace she is going we are about ready to buy her a set of Billy-Bob teeth so she can chew her food.
The last Tooth Fairy visit proved to be a little bit traumatic in that she mistakenly left the pillow at the foot of Stella’s bed, which means that the Tooth Fairy must have forgotten that Stella’s sleep habits resemble someone making a snow angel – for 8 hours straight. When Stella woke up in the morning her loot was scattered all over her bedroom, at which point she ran into my bathroom sobbing that she couldn’t find all the parts.
This time, Stella would be having none of that tomfoolery and came up with a plan that would insure the safety of her precious tooth loot. She commissioned her father to draw a map where the tooth pillow was safely stowed for tooth withdrawal and reward. Voila! Problem solved. One slight flaw in her plan was that she did not clearly articulate that the Tooth Fairy was then expected to relocate the pillow and draw her a map. Um, somebody needs to tell that Tooth Fairy to GET WITH THE PROGRAM! Doesn’t she know who she is dealing with here?
Gueth What!?
Stella has about 5 teeth at varying stages of looseness. This front one kind of twisted its way out; at one point it was practically at a 90 degree angle to the rest of her teeth. Likewise, the others are moving around in such a way as to create strange gaps and craters. Every time I look at her I end up having to do a double-take, and can’t help but wonder what her new smile will look like. Whatever the case, she stands to make a tidy profit on the whole affair.
PS: If you are wondering about that curious black blob on her right cheek you should probably ask her father. I left her alone with him for 30 minutes while I ran to Target, and came home to find her amply adorned in temporary tattoos and Porter wearing nothing but a diaper. Oh, wait, that’s right – Porter doesn’t ever wear clothes. Silly me.
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