Day 153 -- The Undocumented Tooth

Maddie lost another tooth. This was was terrible. For a week at every meal she'd bite down too hard and make the gums around the loose tooth bleed. We begged her to let us take it out, but she fought against it. Saturday afternoon, we could take no more. I offered her a reward if she would just let us take it out. Fine. A new Barbie. Fine. Normally I just don't bribe in that way, but I'd had it with the stupid tooth.

Jared got the dental floss and for about 30 minutes tried to lasso the darned thing. She'd pull back at the critical second or use her lips to push the floss off the tooth. Finally we convinced her to let us try one more time and if it didn't work, we'd stop.

I held her forehead with one hand, her head in the crook of my armpit. I held the top lip back with the other hand (trying to keep her own hands out of the way at the same time). Jared finally got the floss around the tooth. He pulled. The tooth wouldn't come out, but now the floss was stuck on the top of the tooth. AAAAHHHHHH! Jared and I looked each other in the eye and communicated telepathically -- it was do or die here. He quickly grabbed the floss and just yanked it as hard as he could. Whooo hoooo! The tooth came out. Maddie was upset -- so much so that she didn't notice the tooth had fallen into her mouth and she was going to swallow it. I reached in and grabbed it really quickly. After about 30 seconds the crisis was over and she was thrilled it was finally gone. We went to Walmart and she chose her Barbie.

To make things even more emotional, the Tooth Fairy forgot to visit her and take away her tooth in the middle of the night. Luckily, the repentant fairy left a note while we were at church that said, "Maddie, I'm sorry I was late. There was trouble at the tooth processing plant. Love, The Tooth Fairy" along with $5 to make up for her mistake.

Tooth #3 is finally dealt with. It feels like there are about 4,203,293 to go.