An old-school photo shower, including Halloween 2015.
|
We are terrible toothfairies and it’s getting worse. Nine kids multiplied by twenty baby teeth equals 180 opportunities to screw up. The little pearlies are mounting. It’s like that scene in “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” where Aragorn is in that haunted mountain talking to the ghost king, surrounded by towering heaps of skulls. It’s like that here, but with teeth. If only I had an army of maid ghosts to unleash on my baseboards. Once sparkling, I’d hold them true to their oaths and release them to the eternal rest of “I Love Lucy” reruns. Archie recently lost his second baby tooth. He’s in first grade, which is when teeth start dropping on a regular basis. His first lost tooth was an exciting event for all, but especially him. He’d get ten bucks, our bounty for the first tooth. This is like one million dollars in five-year-old money. The mood was celebratory and everyone was happy for him, sharing their own first-tooth stories. Nearly a year passed before the lost tooth’s neighbor loosened. A few nights ago, during dinner, Archie went into baby tooth labor. There was blood when he bit into his garlic chicken. There was pain. There was a dash to the powder room for a status check. There was a wail. A few of the older kids followed him and shouted reports and advice. “It’s barely hanging on!” “Just pull it!” “The Toothfairy will come!” “You can do it!” But Archie answered these affirmations with screams. He couldn’t do it! It was going to hurt! Nobody understands! Those of us still eating our garlic chicken noted the second tooth is the hardest. With the first, you don’t know what to expect. With the second, you do but you don’t have the life experience to teach you it’s not a horrible as you remembered. I thought about intruding on the scene, but the kids were being wonderfully sweet and encouraging. I’m proud to say the older kids became his Toothdoulas. They coached him and encouraged him until it was born and placed in a felt bag attached to a stuffed Daffy Duck, as all babies are.  Archie doesn’t have a tooth pillow. He wanted Daffy Duck to be the bearer of his baby teeth. That night, Archie slumbered with Daffy nestled near, waiting for a fairy to tiptoe to his side to trade one tooth for one dollar. She never came. She totally spaced it and remembered the next day while she was at the doctor with another kid. She texted her colleague, who stealthily managed to make the trade so that Archie was rewarded after school. But Archie had completely forgotten about the Toothfairy, too. “Oh! Yeah! A dollar.” Six-year-olds know a dollar is basically ten cents. The dirty looks starting rolling in around age two and a half. Pacifiers get the side-eye, regardless. People are convinced they lead to orthodontic and speech issues, but I’m not. Out of our nine kids, only one didn’t use a pacifier. Guess which child had speech therapy? If you guessed the one who never used a pacifier, congratulations! Your Irony Meter is ticking along beautifully. Do not send it in for repairs. Traditionally, we liked our kids to quit the coo-coo* habit around their second birthdays. Most did. Happily, some of them did it solely on their own. It was tougher with a few. With Ollie, we didn’t start pushing the issue until he neared his third birthday. As the baby of the family, he’s ridiculously spoiled. He just is. There are ten older people to do his bidding. If one won’t, someone else will. We chose Ollie’s third birthday as the day the coo-coo would disappear. For months, we’d note that on his birthday, he wouldn’t have it any more because he would be so, so big. Too big for a baby coo-coo! He’d repeat this, usually garbled as it bounced in his mouth. We also told him he would get to go to Build-a-Bear, which is our traditional third birthday destination. He’d get to put his coo-coo inside his new stuffed pal so it would be near. He could trade one soother for another. I was happy and anxious as the eleven of us invaded the mall near our house. We filed into Build-a-Bear and stood back as Ollie looked at the possibilities. Most of us expected he’d go for one of the My Little Pony friends, as he’s a total Brony. Surprisingly, he grabbed a Spiderman/teddy bear mashup. “Spiderbear!” he said. The clerk began to fill Spiderbear with fluff. Ollie took a puffy red heart and stuffed it inside. Then, we told him he should put his coo-coo inside, too. He took it out of his mouth and settled it next to the heart. The clerk sewed up the back and we moved on. He went through all the motions one does at Build-a-Bear. He chose a Spiderman suit with tall red boots to dress Spiderbear, completely committing to the theme. We returned home to his My Little Pony-themed Spikey Wikey cake and a small celebration.
I was impressed and gratified by his maturity and understanding. Clearly, he was ready for his big sacrifice. Until bedtime. “Dada! Cut it! Cut it!” Ollie held up Spiderbear, imploring us to crack open his fuzzy back to retrieve his coo-coo for bed. We couldn’t. We wouldn’t. Ollie was mad at Spiderbear, but eventually fell asleep. The next morning, he brought Spiderbear to me and said, “It’s bad news.” There’s a new bad-news bear in town. I told him I was sorry. The coo-coo was done. That was that. He hasn’t looked back since the first tricky, sad night. Admittedly, Spiderbear is ignored. In Latin, he’s known as araneae-ursidae non grata. I haven’t seen it in weeks, but that’s okay. I haven’t seen a coo-coo bobbing in my baby’s mouth, either. Yeah. I said baby. *coo-coo is our long-time family name for pacifier |
||
|
Copyright © 2024 Lifenut - All Rights Reserved Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
||
