The Brave Little Peanut

When Shaylen's first tooth came out, we knew that her second one (right beside it) wouldn't last much longer either. I've been keeping tabs on it for the past couple of days because it was leaning further and further out of her gums.

Today I wiggled it and realized that it was holding on for dear life. I figured it would come out today, possibly in breakfast, lunch or supper if I didn't intervene. I had offered to pull it out like a good and loving mother (even though I didn't want to), but Shaylen courteously declined. At least she knew it was an option. If she started not eating like her brother did, I was going to have to step in and get the thing out of there.

After a make-up swim class today I took the kids to the store to pick up a few items we needed. I let Shaylen pick out her favorite kind of ice cream, just in case her tooth came out. I was hoping that would be appealing, thus motivating her to be proactive in this whole tooth extraction thing. She is, after all, our Carb Queen. Why not make that work for me, hmmm?

Tonight she told Taigen that she might let us pull it out. This was at 4:00pm and Taigen was getting ready to go and meet Jason for a Celtics game. I said, "Unless she has plans on you pulling it, like...right now, it's going to have to be me." (You all know how I cringe at the thought.) He laughed.

After Taigen left, Shaylen came downstairs worried that she would eat the tooth. I took a deep breath, pulled up my boot straps, and offered to help her get it over with.

The option of numbing her gums appealed to her. I told her that I would put the Ora-jel on and then let her wiggle it as much as she could. She did this, thus making my job of pulling much easier. (I was secretly hoping I wouldn't even have to touch it!) We numbed it once more for good measure, she closed her eyes and it practically fell out into my fingers. It was painless and, surprisingly all done without a shedding of a tear. What a brave girl. She looks so cute!