That Tooth's Done Gone

That tooth sure was wiggly this morning. When Baxter spoke, it was hard not to be overly distracted by the awkward sideways angle at which it wobbled. "It's coming out this week for sure," I said to him before school.

When I arrived to pick Baxter up this afternoon, he was running to greet me, neck and neck with his friend Ella. Ella beat him by a hair. "Baxter has news to share!" she sang cheerily. Ella loves to be the 1st to report any news; she'd make a great reporter. Baxter dove into my arms and began to sob. "Did he lose that tooth?" I asked Ella and the rest of the kids crowded around us. "Yes, but I lost it!" he wailed into my shirt. His teacher approached us and explained apologetically that Baxter put it into his pocket but then somehow lost it. "The whole class searched all over the floor for it," she told me. "Even I was down there looking for it," said his 60-something year old teacher, laughing. She subtly indicated to me that he was very upset and crying about it. I reminded Baxter that I once lost a tooth in a shag carpet (God bless the 70s) and had to write the Tooth Fairy a note, explaining what had happened, and that everything had turned out just fine. He nodded, but was still visibly heartbroken. Moments like this one make me wonder if everyone experiences this much high drama about such things, or if the universe is just giving me something to put on the blog, knowing it's been two weeks.

On a whim, I stuck my hand into the deep pocket of his pants and fished around. "I found it!" I exclaimed, and was met with great cheers from everyone. There was his little tiny tooth, the very one I can still see popping up through his gums when he was 5 months old. It caused him so much pain then that I am glad he is able to put it under his pillow and get some small reward for it now.

Speaking of which, Matt suggested we take the advice of the author of "The Three Martini Playdate" (a book we both greatly enjoyed), and dole out a Sacagawea gold coin for each lost tooth. They are unusual, worth a whole dollar, and bear a fabulous resemblance to the gold coins pictured in pirates' treasure chests in story books. We picked up a handful of these at the bank today and are ready for Tooth Fairy action. Baxter's tooth is under his pillow in a small paper envelope made by his teacher. He will be thrilled beyond words to find this gold coin in its place.

I asked him how it had come out. "I pulled it myself," he said proudly. "What made you do that?" He pointed shyly at me. "Because you did that once," he remembered.

Just to celebrate this special occasion with Baxter this afternoon, I did what any fun-loving parent would do: walked him straight over to Jamba Juice to get a smoothie that he could drink with a straw that could stick right through that gap in his mouth. I'm not sure which of us was more pleased.

Generosity

I admit it. My mind was blown. But also, I felt so proud.

I walked Baxter to school today because Matt is off on a business trip in Hawaii, poor guy. It's been a long time since I've done the morning walk, usually being the one who picks him up at the end of the day. Now that the kindergartners are seasoned school-goers, they convene in the "upper yard" of the school each morning, where all of the big kids (up through fifth grade) gather. It was sort of startling for me to see all of these enormous kids running around, playing basketball, jump rope and well, just running around, out there. Baxter looked so small.

Well, little 16-month old Lyle stood on this busy school yard, just staring at the balls. Oh, those balls...yellow balls, blue balls...balls being thrown up in the air towards the basketball hoops, balls involved in games of catch. Yes, balls that were in use. Not only in use, but in the hands of The Big Kids. "Ba! Ba!" he'd shriek, pointing at the balls and then looking up at me, as if to say, "Um, hello? Why are you not bringing me over there to play with one of those?" It did not even occur to me to try. I simply told him, "The kids are playing with those, we'll play with your ball at home." But he persisted. "Ba! Ba!" he said excitedly to Baxter. Honestly, I didn't think much of it.

That is, until Baxter said something unintelligible and took off running in the direction of the ball court. As I watched, dumbfounded, my child politely and enthusiastically addressed a GIANT boy (in 3rd or 4th grade, I'd say) and returned with a bright yellow ball. Lyle's face lit up and Baxter said, "We can just play with it for a minute, I told them we'd bring it right back." And sure enough, I turned and looked at the big kids and saw that they were standing in a small circle on the court, looking as surprised as I was that they had let him take it. "I told them that my little brother really, really loves balls and just wanted to play with it for a minute," he said. Lyle was in heaven as they threw the ball back and forth a few times, and didn't complain for a moment when Baxter ran off and gave it back to the waiting kids, thanking them for the loan.

Cute girlfriend and a loose tooth

In the last 10 minutes before bed tonight, we discovered two new things about our kindergartner:

#1 He thinks he has a girlfriend
#2 He has his first loose tooth

We were reading a chapter from "Little House on the Prairie", which Baxter loves, by the way. He likes to look at the title of the next chapter before closing the book. Tonight, it was "Fever 'n' Ague". He didn't understand the function of that little 'n' so we explained how it was an abbreviation for "and", and went on to give examples, such as "mac 'n' cheese", "Baxter 'n' Lyle", etc. He suddenly said, "or...Baxter 'n' Laura!" and then giggled and hid his little embarrassed smirk under the blanket. Matt and I looked at each other in amazement, realizing suddenly that he has a crush on Laura Ingalls! So we asked him if he thinks Laura is kind of a "special" girl. Of course he declined to comment, but was laughing. I have always hated when adults joke with kids about their boyfriends or girlfriends, having despised that kind of teasing from my grandparents when I was a kid, so I started to say, "Oh, no, Daddy, 5 year olds don't have girlfriends, just friends who are girls." But oh, no, was I ever wrong! Baxter quickly corrected me, saying, "Yes, they can!" and giggled hysterically. Again, we looked at each other in amazement - "Do you have a girlfriend, Baxter?" "Yes! Lucy!", he exclaimed. Baxter's good friend Lucy (shown with Baxter in the princess picture above) is one of a few girls who has proposed to him, and he did decide recently that she would be his choice as a wife - "Because we always love to play together!" And you know, that's as good a reason as any.

We had just gotten over the shock of this little admission when Matt discovered that one of Baxter's little tiny front baby teeth is loose. Baxter went wild with excitement, running into the bedroom where I was, and throwing his arms around my legs. There were about 100 questions about the Tooth Fairy, most of which we promised to answer tomorrow. He went to bed feeling very big and cool.

It's kind of amazing how, in the span of 15 minutes, you can suddenly see your little kid turning into a big kid.

Need or Want?

Don't you just hate it when they use your words against you?

We worked hard in the weeks before Christmas to distinguish between something that was a true "need" and something that we merely wanted. Of course, this was for Baxter's benefit, as we felt it was important that he not go through life thinking he needed such things as a mother and baby Brachiosaurus or even a cookie.

"Mommy, do you need the book, or is just something you want?" he asked knowingly as he trailed behind me at Border's after Christmas. There I was, happily shopping for books with a generous gift card one of my clients had given me, and I suddenly felt that I had to rationalize my purchase to my 5-year old. "Uhh, well, no, I don't need it," I stammered. "I was given money to spend at this store by one of my clients, and I've been wanting this book for a while now, so I get to buy it."

"No!" he screamed, as I was trying to lure him into the injection room at the doctor's office last week. "I don't NEED a flu shot! You just WANT me to get one!" Hmm. Technically, I suppose he had a case. But as I looked between the large flailing child on the hallway floor and the impatient nurse in the room waiting to give him his shot so that she could help the other kids waiting, I pushed his case from my mind pretty quickly. I am not proud to admit this, because I know I shouldn't really care, but it is also fairly embarrassing to have a very large 5-year old suddenly lose it, tantrumming on a floor in the main hallway of the doctor's office. So I told him that actually he did need it, because it's what his doctor said he needed to do. This didn't make a whit of difference, but when I started to describe the flu, perhaps using a bit of exaggeration in describing its symptoms, he agreed to come in.

I guess he gets it.