It starts with a wiggle.
Back and forth, back and forth.
Next a twist and a tug.
Then pop!
He dances around excited that he will finally be joining the rest of his classmates on the tooth chart.
He grins with pure joy but I can’t help but feel a pang of emotion deep in my soul.
He shows me his first tooth, sitting in his hand, so small and unassuming. I remember that little tooth though. It was the tooth that woke us up in the middle of the night when he was 8 months old. There were screams and tears, then the discovery that he badly needed his diaper changed.
With a thermometer reading of 99.7 degrees and fearing he was sick, I took the day off work and hustled to the grocery store to stock up on Pedialyte and all the ingredients Google had taught me were required for the B.R.A.T diet.
After lots of cuddles and cold teethers, a little tooth grew in. It resided there, solo for months, the white shard in his gummy smile. We called him, “Little Tooth.”
Later, it was joined by others. Each bringing a low grade fever, tons of drool and 3 days of extra cuddles. Now with my third child, I know all the signs of teething and can almost predict when a tooth will pop, but this first little tooth dropped me into the complete unknown.
Today, he dances around showing off the gap in his mouth, feeling his tongue go in and out, fingers constantly tracing the missing spot in the lineup.
I can’t help but feel a little gap in my heart at this moment too. His feelings of joy and maturity fill me with longing and reminiscing of my baby. My once little guy is now a boy, who will soon be a teenager, and then a man.
As his adult tooth grows in, I hope the gap in my heart will start to fill in as well. Not with sadness and longing for the past, but with the knowledge that my love for him is permanent.
