The Poor, poor Tooth Fairy!!

I've never really worried about my munchkins being "normal", but there are some things I thought were universal. Like loose teeth for instance. I didn't think there was ever a child who had a loose tooth and didn't mess with it for days before it finally fell out. I was pretty sure there was a law somewhere about fiddling with loose teeth.

And then there was Logan.

I have been checking their teeth for a year and a half, waiting for their first loose tooth. Yes, I am anal like that. Maybe I was more excited about them loosing teeth than they were. I explained to them that their teeth would fall out and new ones would grow back in their place. Shouldn't that be fascinating to a little boy?? Mine showed mild interest to placate me.

So a few weeks ago, Logan's first tooth fell out. We were getting ready to go to swimming lessons and I was trying to usher the boys out the door. Logan was ignoring me and holding a towel to his mouth. I demanded to know what he was doing and he showed me the blood on the towel. He had never noticed his tooth being loose until the tooth literally fell out in his hand.

Several weeks later, at a previously scheduled dentist appointment, we had x-rays taken of their teeth and Logan was going to lose a second tooth within a couple of weeks. I want to stress that I did not take my kids to the dentist to get x-rays just to see when their teeth were going to fall out. The appointment was scheduled six monthes ago at their last appointment. I'm a freak, but I'm not going to get my kids x-rayed to find out when they're going to lose a couple of teeth. Trip's first tooth will be a few more months!

Since Logan's second tooth was so close to falling out, I asked him every few days if the tooth was loose. He'd claim ignorance, refuse to let me check, acquiesce finally and let me check only for the tooth to not be loose.

And then finally, we were out eatng Mexican food one night. Logan was going to eat nachos, so I asked him about the tooth. The tooth was hanging on by the smallest piece of tissue. I couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it before then. Big Daddy Awesome and I then proceeded to tell Logan every three minutes to make sure he didn't swallow the tooth. Can you guess what happened? If you guessed he swallowed the tooth, you would be absolutely right!

How do you not feel the tooth leave your gums? How do you not notice a tooth while you are chewing your food? Does he chew his food?

Being the slightly disturbed mother I am, I told him the Tooth Fairy was going to have to wait until he pooped out the tooth and then find the tooth in his poop before he could get any money from her. He believed me. Why wouldn't he? Mothers don't lie to their children about important things like the Tooth Fairy or tooth retrieval!



So we got home and I forgot about the tooth. Four days later, I finally remembered to leave a dollar under his pillow. I went to work the next morning before the sun broke over the horizon and assumed my munchkin would find his dollar. He didn't. I asked Big Daddy Awesome if Logan had found his tooth all day long. They were all at home. Apparently, the munchkins never made it back up to their bedroom. So, Logan found his dollar when I was putting him to bed that night.

He holds up his dollar in he air and says, "Look Mom! The tooth fairy ate the poop off of my tooth and gave me a dollar!"

You're welcome for the visual!

Foot in Mouth Disease

I have probably suffered from Foot in Mouth disease my entire life, but it has become more pronounced in the last few years. This is probably due in part to my ever increasing age and my shrinking ability to care what people think.

My friends and family know this about me very well. If you can be offended, I will offend you. If you're sensitive about something, I will comment on it. This comment will be offensive to everyone, not just you. I can't help it. My mouth opens and words come out and then I think about the words coming out of my mouth. This is one of the reasons I prefer to shop alone. This may also be the reason that the only person who ever asks me to go shopping with her is my mother.

So obviously, I'm headed towards a story. Here it is!

I was at Sam's the other day. Sam's would be the large wholesale cousin of Wal-Mart. There is a clothing section in the middle of the store. I was already irritated with the boys, so they were sitting in the shopping cart and were reasonably quiet.

The fact that my children were in the basket and being reasonably quiet must have made this poor, unsuspecting woman think that I was a good person to ask for an opinion. Or she was on crack, because I wouldn't ask me for my opinion. So she asks me if the short sleeved, long waisted cardigan is too tight on her.

Who in their right mind asks a perfect stranger a question like that????

So I looked at her and tried to give her an honest opinion.

"I'm really not the right person to ask because I don't like those sweaters. Unless you have really thin arms, they don't look good."

That entire phrase came out of my mouth. I didn't just think it. I said it. And then I realized what I said. What I said was a thinly veiled "Your arms are too fat for that sweater."

And then I stopped talking. I just looked at her. She looked at me. And then, like I hadn't said anything at all, she said,

"But is it too tight in the middle?"

I had to remind myself to speak. I told her "No. It's not too tight. It looks fine."

And then I walked hurriedly away.

I'm thinking about wearing a sign around my neck when I go out, warning passersby not to ask my opinion.

The First Curse Word

When I was pregnant with the munchkins, I was terrified that I might do something wrong. I wanted desperately to make sure they were smart and tall and healthy and had happy childhoods and became productive members of society and my list went on and on and on. I read book after book trying to make sure they became the best people they could be and I did the best I could for them. I was a little high strung at the time. That moment has passed.

Now, my list is shorter. At the end of the day, if the entire list can be answered affirmatively, it has been a good day.

1. Are the munchkins both still alive?
2. Do they still possess all of their limbs?
3. Do they still possess all of their digits?
4. Have we avoided a trip to the emergency room?

By the time the boys were about 18 months old, I had loosened up quite a bit from the time when I was reading all of the books and terrified I would screw up my children, but I would still play some classical music in my car when they were with me. Some book somewhere had proclaimed that classical music would foster brain growth, so I played classical music for them. Or rather, I played the one classical music CD I had because I liked it, which was Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.

So on one of those days when I was driving the boys home from Ed's office, I was playing Tchaikovsky and thinking about how wonderful of a mother I was, helping with their brain development and all. They had just started talking. My thoughts about my fantastic mothering were interrupted by my sweet baby Logan talking in the background. I finally decided to listen to what he was saying. My sweet little baby was grabbing his feet and saying, "sonofabitch, sonofabitch, sonofabitch, sonofabitch." There was no malice in his tone. He was just trying the words on for size, letting them roll off his tongue.

The thought that went through my head was, Well, son of a bitch, where did he hear that?

The words that actually came out of my mouth were, Well, son of a bitch, OHHHH!

I laughed at myself and my baby. I told Big Daddy Awesome about the whole thing. We talked about cutting the curse words out of our vocabulary and realized that would be an exercise in futility for us.

Now, those words are called "Grown up words" and the munchkins make an effort not to say them in front of us. Hey, they're still alive with all of their limbs.