Wiggle room

On Monday Anna started whining after she bit down on her Kashi waffle. "Something hard in there hurt my tooth!" she wailed. I thought maybe some pebble or hard blueberry accidentally got in there. I couldn't find any problem with the rest of her waffle, so I blew it off. But off and on she kept complaining about her gum hurting. Once I even spied her flossing her teeth.

Today she tried to eat a hard pear and started crying about her tooth again. "My whole mouth hurts when I bite down!" she said. "You have to check it!" Colin was having a tantrum at the same time, so the wailing fit right in. I brought Anna into the light and examined her, then felt her teeth.

One of her lower incisors wiggled.

"Anna! You have a loose tooth! You're going to lose a tooth soon!" I told her.

Anna personified the phrase turn that frown upside-down. She went from utter pathos to complete joy. "Really?" she giggled. "The tooth fairy is going to come? When? What day will I lose my tooth?"

I looked at her pretty smile, and thought of how excited we were when she was a baby and celebrated the arrival of each of those little teeth. She'll probably look a little gawky in the next few years, with a gap-toothed grin then big adult teeth, and I'm sure braces are to come...

This is all going way too fast.