The Blundering Tooth Fairy

About a month ago, my oldest excitedly announced his first loose tooth. Now to call his tooth loose is being pretty generous. Every 5 minutes for the first few days he asked me to check if it was looser than 5 minutes ago. This child is only excited about a tooth falling out, because he has heard that you get money for teeth that are no longer attached to a mouth. 

At first he felt that each tooth was worth $19. When I came back with 25 cents, we both agreed we could live with a buck a tooth. Don't you have like 20 teeth? Times 4 kids, I'm going to owe $80 for gross little baby teeth? What, no sleep as they were coming in and spending my life savings on baby Motrin wasn't enough??? Now I gotta pay for them to fall out?

Anyways, two weeks ago kid #2 came into my bedroom at 6am panicked because something was wrong with his tooth. Much to my surprise the thing was so wiggly I had no idea how it was still hanging on. Imagine #1's utter dismay to realize his little brother was going to lose a tooth before him. Now Kyler had already lost a tooth, but it had to be pulled at age 2 by a dentist with a large scary needle and a humorous amount of laughing gas, and had been awarded a Tootsie Pop by the tooth fairy so it didn't really count to big brother. 

Knowing Kyler I am very suspicious that this tooth's mobility could have been encouraged by face planting on the trampoline, or falling face first out of the top bunk, or sumo wrestling with brothers over the back of the couch. Last night the thing was hanging by a string, and as today was the last day of preschool it would be his last chance to show off his new gap, so he tried eating a bag of apples and nothing happened. Over the course of several hours he worked up the courage to let daddy take a pair of pliers to the dangling little chomper. 

At this point I will again point out my dear hubby's amazing handiness with garage tools when it comes to  our children's health care needs. You may remember the blog on the peanut that found itself lodged in the same child's nose a few years back, and when Kevin was threatened with an ER with 3 children by himself and the co-pay with it, he went into the garage and found a poking tool, extracting the little nut himself; no co-pay required. 

Kyler wiggles in bed more than anyone I know. Never once have I gone into his room to find his head nestled on the pillow, in fact a few times I have had to move the head that was hanging off the edge of the bed back onto solid mattress. Knowing this, the thought of a little tooth hiding unsuspectingly between sheets made me shudder, so we decided to let the tooth fairy know that the tooth would be waiting for her on the kitchen counter. The Tooth Fairy is very nice so she can roll with the punches! 

11pm I am finally drifting off to sleep after getting the baby with an ear infection calmed down yet again and my hacking husband with pneumonia has settled into a moaning slumber. Suddenly I realized there was a tooth awaiting a swap with a dollar sitting on my counter. I sit straight up in bed and shout, "oh no the tooth fairy!" My sick husband jolts awake, "Where??"

I go scrounging for a dollar. I don't have any, so I find 4 quarters and fumble my ways downstairs. I trade the tooth for the coins and then I am left holding this little gross thing that has lived its life in my son's mouth! What do I do with it? I stand barefoot in the middle of the kitchen in my pink pj's with the stove light on staring at this thing for 5 minutes. Finally I flick it into the trash can and go running back up stairs. My husband can't believe I threw it away. What am I supposed to do with it? He thinks we should have kept it in a baggie. Now I feel like a bad mom. Do people really keep those things??? What else do they keep?

I finally get back in bed, but then I hear what sounds like someone in my backyard and go investigate, because hubby is sick, and yes I did make him get up and run into the back yard wearing only underwear to rescue a plastic swimming pool at midnight once while it was snowing, but he didn't have pneumonia and a 102 fever then. (Our neighbors probably never go to bed, because they want to see what else those crazy Wilson's will do)There is no one in the backyard, but in getting up I wake up the baby again and my husband rouses, sending him into yet another 45 minute coughing fit. I saw almost every hour last night. Stinking tooth, I could have been asleep by 11......!

My Mom

Today I looked at my husband and said, "How the heck am I the mom of 4 kids?? I have become my mother!" And I am proud of it!

My mom taught me some very important lessons! She taught me that if your man is loading dishes in the dishwasher in the most ineffective way known to man, to never ever say anything. He'll never load it again!

She taught me that if your dishes come out with a few little pieces of food still stuck on, that is perfectly ok. Its clean food!

My mother taught me that if the dryer is making a horrible noise and seems to be walking across the laundry room, then your radio is not even near high enough!

She taught me that no matter how old your kid gets, you still lay awake at night worrying that they ate the right food, have the right friends, marry the right person and changed their underwear today.

I must admit that I made my mom's job every mother dream, no mom, not night mare, I said dream. I remember one day my sister and I were doing something we weren't supposed to. Hard to believe I know.  Anyway we were sentenced to the downstairs indefinitely. The downstairs had this window that was level to the ground. After a while, and I am sure this was my sister idea, we climbed out of the window and went to play. 

I remember once a neighbor boy walked me home. It was starting to get dark, and we stood outside talking. At one point I glanced up at my bedroom window directly above us and my mothers nose was squished rather disproportionately against the window, lips leaving smudges, as she tried to hear what we were talking about. 

I remember my mom taking me to get my ears pierced and 10 years later convincing her to do the same. I remember my mom reading to us for hours at a time. I remember sitting on the floor for inhumane amounts of time as my mom painstakingly braided my hair in little tiny braids so my hair would be wavy for church. I remember my mom prom dress shopping with me, and her tight lipped smiles when I headed out the door with my prom date. I remember my mom hugging me good bye at my wedding, trying not to cry. I remember my mom, tears streaming down her face as she held her first grandson for the first time, and even though he looked like something from a horror movie with his odd shaped purple bruised head, saying he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen and she totally meant it!

I have called my mom sobbing. I have called my mom so excited I was breathless. I have called my mom with nothing really to talk about and hung up an hour later. I have called my mom asking, what do I do if my son eats THAT? Or what should I do if my kid is still in diapers in college? What should I do if I have baked the pie for 2 hours and its still runny? What should I use to get pee out of the carpet? What should I do if I am sick and my kids aren't? What should I do if my kid is covered in red spots?

Mom I am so proud to call you mom!! I love you more than I will ever be able to tell you and I hope I can be as good of a mother as you have been. Thank you!