Pulling teeth

A few days after Thanksgiving I was brushing Jacob's teeth and noticed something behind his lower right front tooth. It was another TOOTH! His adult tooth had cut behind his baby tooth and was coming in. So I tried to wiggle his baby tooth and it only moved a tiny bit. I called the dentist and he said if I could get it out in a week or two then the new tooth would probably moved forward on it's own. It it wasn't out soon, the dentist would have to pull it. So the wiggling began. Here's Jacob with all his baby teeth. The poor kid just cannot smile normally.

Jacob, of course, didn't like wiggling his tooth because "it hurt". However I loved wiggling Jacob's tooth. I always enjoyed pulling my teeth when I was younger and would fiddle and fiddle and fiddle until I got the thing out. I thought it was all so fascinating. Well guess what...the fascination hasn't changed a bit. Playing with Jacob's tooth was tons of fun. Jacob had different feelings about it and would hardly ever let me do it unless I brided him or finally I figure out that he was happier when I gave him a little mirror so we could watch what I was doing. Anyway, Saturday the 19th we had Christmas dinner and opened presents with my parents. We would be out of town for Christmas and miss the real family dinner so we did it early with them. Jacob showed Grandma how loose his tooth was and she offered to pull it. I almost said "No way, that is my tooth to pull!" but I didn't have to because Jacob refused. Later that night before bed I was wiggling it and thought that I could get it out now. We were leaving for CA on Monday and I didn't want to have to do Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy at the Beach House. Jacob wasn't letting me do much so David put some thread around it and try to get Jacob to pull it. He wasn't doing anything so I just snuck my hand in there and tugged on it. Jacob was not happy about that but now the tooth was just barely hanging on so I was able to just gently pull it out. The tooth had a long root left on the front of it that was making it hard to get out. Once the bleeding stopped Jacob couldn't have been happier. He was so excited that the tooth fairy was going to bring him money!

They don't have the tooth fairy in Mexico so David asked me how much money the tooth fairy would leave Jacob. While I was thinking he says "like 10 dollars." Holy Cow, honey, I'm not going to to pay Jacob $200 for all his baby teeth. The tooth fairy left some gum along with the money and the gum was a big hit and he even shared it with Adam. The best part about the whole thing is that the tooth right next to it is a little loose too so I'm going to get to pull teeth again real soon. In fact between my kids I'll get to do this at least 50 times. Wahoo!