Kaitlynn Loses her First Tooth

The kids had their bi-annual dental checkups in January and the dentist told Kaitlynn that her two lower front teeth were both loose. Kaitlynn was SO excited! She was ready to lose a tooth so that the tooth fairy would come visit her. Of course, the dentist's definition of "loose tooth" was very different from ours -- you could only barely wiggle it at the time.

As the month wore on, Kaitlynn was getting impatient at times and didn't understand why it was taking so long for her loose teeth to fall out. I told her she could encourage the teeth to loosen up by eating on them and brushing them a little harder, so that's just what she did. Every once in a while, she would comment about one of her lower teeth and have us wiggle it, and it was definitely loosening up.

One night before bed, her tooth was really wiggling. As I am the tooth-puller in the family, I wiggled it and still thought she had another week or so to go. But the next morning, she woke up and was really bothered by that tooth. It was much looser, so I asked her if she wanted me to try to pull it. Sure enough, after a few tugs, I could tell it was about to come out. It was bleeding a little but Kaitlynn insisted, so I tugged one last time and there it was! Kaitlynn was so excited, her squeals of delight brought Jeff in from the other room. Oh happy day! (ha!)

Still in her pajamas, she was happy to show off the loss of her first tooth!

Look at that face, ha!

Several months ago, the daughter of one of our friends gave Kaitlynn a little tooth pillow that will hold your tooth for the tooth fairy. At the time, Rylie told Kaitlynn that if you put your tooth in that pillow and place it under your bed, the tooth fairy would bring her an extra dollar. Kaitlynn never forgot that and couldn't wait to put her tooth in that pillow! I'm not sure what she was more excited about, the tooth fairy or going to school and showing off the gap in her mouth from her lost tooth!

I just happened to be visiting Kaitlynn's classroom later that day to teach Junior Achievement. I arrived to the room a little early so I took the opportunity to peek into Kaitlynn's daily writing journal. When I saw what she had written that morning, I smiled so big!

Kaitlynn was "soopr" excited about losing her first tooth!

When it was time to go to bed that night, Kaitlynn made sure to secure her tooth in the little pillow from Rylie and place it under her pillow. She couldn't wait for the tooth fairy to visit! Sure enough, the next morning Kaitlynn came running into my bathroom with her good news. The tooth fairy had indeed visited, and she left Kaitlynn a $5 dollar bill (the going rate in our house for the first tooth) plus another $1 dollar bill. Wow, was Kaitlynn excited!!