When my youngest son, Zeke, was little and began to lose teeth, I remember that his first tooth loss was not an ideal experience. He went to bed one night with a very loose tooth, and woke the next morning with no tooth in that socket. After searching the bed, we came to the conclusion that he'd swallowed his first lost tooth in the middle of the night. No one was willing to wait a few days and search for it.
For his second loose tooth, Zeke was determined to have the tooth in-hand. He spent days wiggling it. He was extra careful about testing its level of detachment before going to bed.
Not long after the mission to extract his own tooth began, the hubs, the two boys, and I went to Walmart to pick up a few groceries. I urged him to pull his fingers from his mouth while we were there because it seemed that all he wanted to do was loosen it, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. He continued to wiggle it; on the bright side, he was quieter than normal while shopping that day, and I don't deny that I wasn't a little relieved with it.
As we began to check out, I heard a triumphant exclamation from behind me. Zeke held the freed tooth high into the air like he'd just removed the sword from the stone. I noted first the delighted and proud smile across his face... then I noted the blood. My incredibly happy boy had blood running down his fingers and dribbling from his mouth and chin. I couldn't help but laugh as the people around us looked on in horror.
After I cleaned him up and secured the tooth, I decided that the tooth fairy would want to pay just a little extra for that tooth. ;-)
