Oh, Dearest.
You are our first child. You are the one that made us fall in love with being parents, the one who convinced us there was still Wonder in the world. You are also the one who taught us how quickly infants can fall off a bed, how literally and figuratively freakishly strong a child can be, and to always bring 2 changes of clothes- for everyone- to church.
You are have been there for every parenting triumph and every parenting failure. All of them.
This story is a recount of the latter, I am sad to say.
Monday night, you were having a rough time getting to bed. There are few things funnier than a VERY tired child yelling at their parents that they are NOT. TIRED. all the while wobbling around like a wet noodle and turning bright red with anger and snot and flailing arms. If you’re not tired, you’re going through menopause, my hand to heaven.
As you were finally crawling under your comforter, we noticed a little red line of blood in your mouth.
“Ry, ” I said, “Is your tooth loose?”
“No.”
“Can you wiggle it?”
Huh. Well, you didn’t know… so you reached in there, wiggled it around, and pulled it right out.
And then proceeded to lose your mind.
Because WHO KNEW your teeth could come out of your head?
Certainly not you. Your parents never told you. Shoot, we just started regular brushing last month! Loosing teeth was the absolute last thing on our radar. We’ve been busy with growing and walking and potty training. And your brother.
Child, I am so sorry. It was terribly traumatic. You didn’t want to sleep with it under your pillow (because, you’re right, that’s weird), so we wrapped the tooth up and placed it on the kitchen island. The Tooth Fairy came (Wow. So much new information in one night. Again, sorry.) and left you $5… because you are five. And she took the tooth… maybe to give to Abby in a few months! Who knows. We were trying to make it better. Fun. Exciting. An honor. Faily, fail, fail.
We dropped the ball. Never saw it coming. Your Olympic Spotlight story just got that much more interesting.
Let me just say, for the record, that re-living childhood through you is ridiculous. How did we ever survive it ourselves? You turn 5, you get ready to be sent on a big yellow bus to a school far away with people you don’t know, your arms and legs start getting too long for your body, and then, also, oh how ’bout your TEETH COME OUT? And a weird fairy comes? At night while you’re sleeping? And gives you money? And TAKES THE TOOTH?
The hack kinda world is this we’ve got you in? Sunnuva.
And we’re supposed to guide and prepare you? For Pete’s sake. I can’t even wash my car.
The rest of your teeth will be considerably less of an ordeal [fingers and eyes crossed]. But, the fact remains that you are growing up. Sometimes we forget that. We listen to you and we watch you and we think, “She’s so little. She’s so very young for her age.” And then your body goes and blows us into reality. Overnight potty training, losing teeth, posting on horses. Whatever.
Bless you my child.
You are my soul.
My deep, complicated, manic, gut-wrenching soul.
I get you.
[My Love.]
[My Heart.]
May 24th, 2012 at 8:45 am
Oh, world. That is just…oh, Rylie. Poor thing. She looks like she’s recovered, though.
May 24th, 2012 at 9:01 am
Oh, wow! At 5?! I’m super impressed. Dacey was well on to six (nearing seven!) before her first one came out.
Five. Five is such a cuckoo age, isn’t it? We had such a tumultuous time with it that I actually bought Jamie Lee Curtis’s kids’ book It’s Hard to Be Five (something like that). The girls both still love it.
Anyway. You are a fantastic storyteller, mama. I love the way you capture moments and paint them so beautifully for us. Glorious. Here’s to less-traumatic life experiences in the very near future!
May 24th, 2012 at 9:14 am
Oh my! Don’t think of it as a parenting fail. Just think of it as a learning experience. The first child is always the “lab rat,” and they usually turn out o.k.–just look at you and me! 🙂 I am glad Rylie recovered her smile. That first picture is absolutely amazing. What a beautiful little lady!
May 24th, 2012 at 10:41 am
Oh, Katie. This made me smile. Poor Rylie! But she seems to have recovered from her trauma enough to smile pretty for the camera.
May 24th, 2012 at 10:59 am
Love her. And you. Thankfully our niece and nephew told our kids otherwise we could have totally forgotten too. She is adorable with her tooth out.
May 24th, 2012 at 11:59 am
I love reading your blog. Thanks for taking the time to write. It reminds me I’m not alone in this sometimes scary, feel outta control time of raising kids. Thanks for sharing and being honest – it’s an encouragement to those of us out there that are ‘with ya’.
May 24th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Been waiting to hear this story! And it makes me think…Clark and I need to have the tooth fairy discussion, STAT.
May 24th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Awesome series on your love, your heart, and your soul…just awesome. What a treasure.
May 28th, 2012 at 5:32 pm
So your five-year-old lost her first tooth. This is too traumatic for me to take. I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT come to grips with the idea of Sarah’s first lost tooth, which is coming, according to other mothers of fives, any time now. NO. It’s completely understandable to me why you weren’t prepared for Rylie’s loss. My baby will just have to grow up and old with little, tiny teeth because her mother forbids them to loosen and fall out. And that’s just the way it is.
May 30th, 2012 at 7:49 am
oops…put my comment under the wrong account:
We had a very similar situation with my son.My son is our first born and also has some sensory difficulties because of being somewhere on the autism spectrum. He is very much the oldest in his Kindergarten class at the age of 6 so we never thought to mention to him it was normal for teeth to be loose. I noticed a whole in his mouth one evening so we the spent the next few hours explaining it was a good thing and assuming he swallowed that tooth because it was no where to be found….ended up finding it in a pile of toys on his floor in his bedroom. I think he ripped it out and tried to stash it because he thought it was a bad thing. We spent so much time talking up the tooth fairy business to get him excited about losing a tooth my 3 year old ended up being terrified of the tooth fairy sneaking into her room and taking her stuffed animals out of her bed…seriously sometimes you just can’t win. Thanks for sharing your stories, it makes me feel better to know others live in crazy-ness too!