Toothless Wonder
Toothless Grin
The tooth fairy has made an appearance twice in the past week. My Thing 1 lost his two front teeth, proudly earning the right to stick his tongue through the gaping hole in his mouth.
He looks adorable and older and excited. Every time he smiles, I smile more and hurt just a bit. I can remember how hard getting those teeth were for him, rubbing baby Ambesol on his sore red gums. I remember how excited he was to crunch his dry Cheerios and how much he loved the sounds of the crunching between his brand new teeth.
He’s getting to be so real, such a tangible human. So much less a baby boy. This is a good thing. This is a good thing, I keep telling myself.
My sister-in-law, an ever-wise woman with one foot in the spiritual world and another grounded firmly in Atlanta, tells me that as children lose their baby teeth, they lose their angel-hood. They become more of the earth and less of the magical place they came from. They begin to grow their own spiritual roots and rely less on the ones they came into. I don’t want him to be more earthly, I want him the angel he is to me.
He doesn’t like his tooth being taken away by the tooth fairy. He wrote her a letter and respectfully asked for (a) money and (b) to leave his tooth with him as he just didn’t want to give away away a part of himself just quite yet. Maybe he’s not quite ready to give up that baby boy life either.
But alas, we put the shiny coin in his special tooth fairy pillow his grandmother made him and wakes up the next day, more toothless grins, coin in one hand and his tooth in the other.
And then he takes his tooth and hands it to me and tells me to hang onto it for him; keep it safe for him.
Will do, angel. Will do.
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