You will be hard-pressed to find any aspect of parenting more dramatic than teeth. When they are coming in, they can ruin your life with the way they make your little ones feel in their drool caves as they cut through gums, and the way they make you feel when your baby tests them out on your tender nipples. Not long after most of your kids’ choppers are in place, they’ll decide to jump ship. Then things get absolutely disgusting. And emotional. And weird. Here’s what you can expect to happen when your kids get a loose tooth.
1. Your kid will come to you every day for two months straight asking you to check to see if her tooth is loose, and after telling her, “maybe next time” sixty times in a row you will finally assure her that yes: you felt a slight wiggle.
2. Absolutely everything in your child’s life from that moment on can and will be related to her loose tooth.
3. Your kid will only consume soft foods on principal.
4. Every day will begin with the claim, “I think it’s gonna fall out today!”
5. Every day will end with the sad trombone tune of, “I really thought today was the day.”
6. After about a week, your kid will only consume hard foods because she has lost all patience for this thing to FALL OUT ALREADY C’MON.
7. You never thought you’d spend this much time of your adult life staring into mouths, considering your complete lack of interest in a dental career.
8. Your kid will show everyone she passes at school, home, sports, dance, the grocery store, and on earth, itself, that her tooth is dangling by a thread.
9. Everyone will freak out about how gross teeth are when they’re hanging by a thread.
10. Upon request, you will try to pull the loose tooth out (while trying not to hurl because OMG THIS IS SO NASTY).
11. After .008 seconds, your kid will FREAK OUT NO SHE’S NOT READY STOP MOM STOP.
12. You will discover a disturbing amount of blurry close-up photos of bloody tooth pulp on your phone that you can never unsee.
13. You will have a case of the Heebie Jeebies every time you witness that tiny tooth clinging to its fleshy tether, flinging around your kid’s mouth as she talks. You begin avoiding conversations with her because your gag reflex can only take so much more of this.
14. Your kid will ask you to try to pull it out one more time.
15. You will be determined to pull that frickin’ loose tooth out because this horror show must end.
16. There will be a ton of blood. Like, soooooo much blood.
17. You will sing-song the phrase, “IT’S OKAY IT’S OKAY” forty-seven times in a row while attempting to hide exactly how much blood comes out of a tooth hole the width of three eyelashes.
18. When it’s all over, your kid’s smile will be ridiculously adorable. Her cuteness factor will become almost impossible to handle. It will cause a slightly tearful moment of mah baby is growing up so fast-ness.
19. You will discreetly Google how much the Tooth Fairy gives these days and begin hoarding shiny quarters.
20. You will officially become a person who stores baby teeth in her underwear drawer.
21. By the time your kid is counting her Tooth Fairy cash, she will have discovered another loose tooth, starting the process all over again.
And here is the loose tooth drama, illustrated, by the amazing Adrienne Hedger of Hedger Humor:
Photo: Getty
