Breaking News!

Yesterday morning, my boy looked like this:

 And then after dinner, morphed into this:

 My boy lost his first tooth!!!!!

Now, let me back up. At the past TWO dentist appointments (so yes, for a year), the dentist has been saying this his tooth was loose. It wasn't. Or, it barely was. Well, Nate got excited about it nevertheless. Fast forward to a few days ago. It started getting - for real - loose. And Nate's excitement changed to nervousness. At dinner with Mum Mum & Granddaddy on Sunday night, he took a bite of his popcorn shrimp and for some reason that made him tear up. He could barely eat the rest of his dinner because "it hurt too bad." And he said the tooth hurt to wiggle it so I knew we were close. We could even see the adult tooth coming in behind it and starting to push it out.

Monday morning, he woke up and it was even more loose. I took that first picture before school b/c I had a feeling it would fall out at school. Oh no. As soon as I picked him up, he started talking non-stop about the tooth, and how he didn't want to eat the lunch I packed (all soft foods), b/c he was going to "swallow his tooth and maybe choke on it." Same story at dinner. Very afraid to eat and acting very dramatic :) As soon as Greg got home after teaching, I told him the tooth had to go. (But to be VERY gentle!!)

Nate & Greg took turns wiggling it and then Nate started trying to work on it some with his tongue, pushing it back and forth. It was super close, but again, Nate didn't have the guts to just pull it out the last little bit. So.....Daddy to the rescue!!!!! There was a lot of tears.... and a LOT of blood, I don't remember that from my childhood. Nate was definitely traumatized. To cheer him up, we took lots of pictures, made a big deal about the tooth fairy, etc.

Look at this sucker! It was a big one!

This is the tooth fairy pillow I used as a kid :)

Very proud!

 So, Greg and I had a looooong discussion about how much $$ the Tooth Fairy was going to bring. I have even asked around for a few months, just to seeing what other people give these days. Let me tell you.....it varies. A lot. I don't even remember what I got as a kid but I don't think it was more than 50 cents per tooth. Perhaps $1 for the first one. So.....enter my dorky husband and he did what any good economist would do and turned to www.bls.gov. He saw that $1 from 1984 (the year Greg was 6 and lost his first tooth) is now worth $2.25. Well, I didn't want to be messing with quarters - thought they might be too noisy while we were trying to make the drop-off :) So I suggested $3 for the first tooth. Greg was feeling generous and did $5 instead. I have no idea what we are going to do for subsequent teeth, but I'm guessing maybe $1 or $2/tooth. Otherwise, the Tooth Fairy is gonna go broke! (And Abby might start pulling her teeth on her own just to make a buck!)

Greg goes to bed much later than me, so we decided he would take on the Tooth Fairy role, to ensure that Nate would be sound asleep. He made the drop-off seamlessly, and our little boy woke up SUPER excited! He ran downstairs this morning and read me this:

He said "I'm rich!" :)

He was very excited to get to school today and show off his holey mouth :) He got his name on the "tooth chart" in his classroom and said his teacher made a big deal about it. I would say about half of the kids in his class have already lost a tooth, some even up to four teeth! Nate was just glad to finally get on the chart! 

And I am super proud of our brave boy! I would like him to stop growing so fast though :(