Toothless Wonder

He finally decided that enough was enough. No more shying away from Mom's famous dental floss tooth-removal technique.  He was willing to endure any amount of pain to get those stubborn little front chompers outa there!

Max is almost eight.  Most of his friends lost their two front teeth long ago.  Although his have been loose for months, they were in there nice and tight!

So, on Monday night, he pulled a long piece of floss out and asked me to do the honors.  Ok. Here's my chance.

It was hard for me to get the floss to wrap around the root well, so I asked him to lay his head in my lap on my bed.  All it took was a couple of tugs and POP...out it came.

Uh Oh.  Hello...where else is it going to go, but the back of his throat?  What was I thinking!??  He immediately ran into the bathroom and tried to cough up the tooth.  To his dismay, it was too late.  He was SO upset.

Jeremy came in to see what all the ruckus was about.
 
"Yeah!  IT FINALLY CAME OUT!!...You swallowed it?  Oh. I guess we'll have to wait for you to poop it out." 

"I think I need to go poo right now," he cried.  (It was hard not to laugh.  Wow, that would be some fast digestion!)

I sat there trying to think of something that would console him.  Then in a moment of inspiration it came to me. The reason he was upset could very well be that he couldn't leave the tooth under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy.

"Max, did you know that the Tooth Fairy actually pays DOUBLE for swallowed teeth?"  I calmly asked. "All you have to do is write her a note and tell her what happened, and she gives you double!"

Instantly he calmed down and smiled.  "Really?," he asked in his cute sheepish voice. 

That was all he needed to hear.  Funny boy.

Now, for the rest of the night, his only objective was to get the other tooth to follow suit.  (Come out, that is, not go down the hatch.) You can't loose one of your front teeth without the other! I wish I would have taken pictures.  It was past bedtime and Jeremy was trying to get him to bed, but he wouldn't go until that tooth was OUT!  And he surely wasn't going to let me do it this time.  (Do you blame him?)

Thankfully, after a good half-hour of wiggling, wrapping with floss, wiggling some more, and tugging...tooth number two decided to comply.

Mission accomplished.

Thankfully, Miss Tooth Fairy did not disappoint.  Max was expecting three dollars.  Two for the swallowed tooth and one for the other.  In her generosity, she gave him a whopping five bucks! Nice lady.