I always thought seven was an awkward age. You become a tad gawky. You lose all that baby cuteness. People stop looking at you as a ‘baby’ and expect you to act all grown up. What a sad age to be – when you’re actually still a baby but no one treats you as one! I dread this phase. I know one day my little one will reach that awful age mark and one sunny morning will stand in front of me with her two front teeth missing. Her cute baby smile replaced by a gawky, self-conscious, I-look-silly-without-this-tooth smile. Will the mischief in her eyes diminish? Will those zillion questions stop pouring out? And what will I do then – when I don’t have to play mommy any more?
Ah…but as always the unexpected struck me when (of course) I was least expecting it.Tooth fairy had other happy plans. My five year old complained last week that her teeth are shaking. I was like “What! So soon!”Even as I automatically corrected her saying “Tooth is singular, teeth is plural. So you have to say my tooth is shaking.” She rolled her eyes at my stupidity. “Yes mom – TWO of my TEETH are shaking.” I was now appalled. Oh jeez was this normal?
From that moment on we inspected the status of her two shaking front teeth every 2 hours. How bad was it? One was shaking more than the other. It had started jutting forward. Trust me you don’t know the value of your teeth until you find that one of them is shaking vigorously. How can you bite your food? What if you swallow it with your meal? It’s crazy! Every meal becomes an adventure. One bite for the left side. Next bite for the right side was our chant. Left. Chew. Right. Chew. We made this a sort of game and giggled through meal times.
By Saturday my obsession with her shaking teeth was driving everyone up the wall! It was barely hanging in there. Almost all of it was out – just one last stubborn corner that was sticking on to her gums. I fretted and worried about whether it will hurt. Will it bleed with the teeth comes out? My heart will break if it hurts her. Then suddenly, just like that, she came to me with something locked in her palm and pried it open to find one little pearly white nestling in there.“THE TOOTH IS OUT!” I screamed while she calmly looked on. The entire household assembled and we all stared at the lone tooth. We asked her to smile and she patiently grinned her one-missing-tooth smile at us all one by one. We hunted for a cute little jewel box and ceremoniously placed her little baby tooth in there. “For the tooth fairy” we said and placed it below her pillow.
Then at 2 am this morning she woke me up and asked for water. I sleepily handed over her bottle and settled back to sleep. Suddenly she gasped. “Oops mom!” she whispered her exclamation. I sat up alarmed.“I swallowed my other shaking tooth” She said casually. “Oops!!!” I whispered back, the alarm bells starting to ring loudly. “Never mind, it will come out when I crap tomorrow.” She reassured me as she settled back into bed.
This morning – the big gap in her smile won all hearts. She looked as adorable as ever. I wondered what I was fretting about. And I marveled at how calmly she had reacted to the lost teeth. I asked her if she felt bad about losing her teeth.“No… a new one will grow soon mom, don’t worry.” She placated me.
Ah another lesson learnt. Why fret over the inevitable. Specially when you know that things are going to be fine soon. I hugged my baby. We squared our shoulders and got ready to face the world, with our to-hell-with-the-missing-teeth smile!
