Lost

I missed it. His first tooth came out and I wasn’t there. Big sigh. Even bigger sigh. That’s not supposed to happen. I home school for pete’s sake. Last week, as I was pulling back the covers for myself, I heard the familiar thumping of feet on the stairs and an unusually high pitched whisper, “Momma!!” Pause. He’s supposed to be asleep! “MOMMA!!” I made my way to the stairs to find him half way down, blanket in tow. “You gotta see this, Momma. C’ mere!” Seeing his finger, I knew what he had discovered. His first loose tooth. I met him in the middle and I hugged him hard seeing baby pictures over his shoulder. I told him I was happy but sad his little mouth was about to change forever. As he floated back up the stairs, he turned and asked this question, "Will I still be your handsome boy?" You know exactly what I said. I have no idea how he ever went to sleep because his excited meter was thumping the other side.

We had Men at the Cross this morning and the kids had soccer games. Sweet Remey agreed to brave this early, cold morning PLUS picture day and be the “soccer sitter”. We met at home after the morning's activities and they caught me on the phone. Before I could end the call, Brighton was jumping around my feet like a Mexican bean with his finger in his mouth, showing off his prized hole. His eyes were shining just like they do when he’s following Jeff out to throw the ball. After soccer gear had landed all around the den and Remey could finally be heard, she admitted a slight glitch in the episode. They couldn’t find the tooth! I thought she was either kidding or I didn’t hear her quite right. My B loves a little joke so I thought they had planned this trick on the thirty minute drive home. Remey’s face told me otherwise. It was lost. She said he bumped his mouth on the bench (and who knows how that happened?), it came out and instead of locating the tiny pearly white, he bolted across the field to proudly present to her his fresh new gap. Realizing what was missing, she organized a search immediately around the team bench and here’s my favorite part: As his teammates and coaches searched and searched and searched………………….. Brighton tried to help by announcing with finger in precise position, “Hey guys, it looks just like these!” Got to love that.

So now he sleeps, wondering, because he has no tooth to show for his little hole, if there will be anything under his pillow when the sun peeks through his curtians come morning. Before bedtime, he found his special blue pillow he’s been waiting to use for about two years. AFTER bedtime, he wrote a note explaining his predicament and drew a picture just in case “she” can’t read. (Mind you, our kids know fairies don’t fly in their windows and jolly men don’t come down our chimney, but they LOVE to pretend.) The note reads like this, “ My tooth is gon but i hav it in my soccr feld but i do not no wer it is but I wud lik you to come to my house please.” (Juila helped him with the last few words and yes, we have a spelling curriculum.) His picture of himself is a little scary. His hair looks like Einstein’s, which, actually, isn't so unusual in the morning, and his teeth look like “wolfman” but he is definitely missing a particular one in his self portrait. He has it all laid out, not the typical “under the pillow” position—making sure “she” doesn’t miss it and making sure it doesn’t get lost in his covers.
For Brighton, a tooth lost. For me, a significant moment lost. Maybe a first for me and I didn’t like it one bit.