Lizzie's First Lost Tooth

I wrote this post on December 12'12, but for some reason forgot to post it.

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My baby, my last child, just lost her first tooth.  How quickly she is growing up all of the sudden.

Her bottom, middle right tooth had been a wee bit wiggly for a while, but it became very wiggly and a little bloody at lunch today when she used it to chomp down on a carrot.  She started to cry because she didn't like the feeling of it, and when she looked in the mirror, she was a little freaked out by the sight of it being off kilter.  Matthew offered to pull it out and, to my surprise, Lizzie agreed.  So she sat on my knee, facing me and holding on for dear life, and Matthew put a kleenex around it and twisted it out.  I was impressed with both of them!

Perhaps what was funniest in the moment, though, was watching Seth!  From the moment that Lizzie expressed discomfort about how her tooth had bitten into the carrot, he became upset.  My tough little nut started to cry and clambered onto my lap for comforting.  I reminded him that he'd lost a whole bunch of teeth and that it really wasn't painful, but he was not to be consoled, so I just hung on tight to him and patted his back and let him cry.  So while Lizzie was having her tooth pulled, I had both younger kids on my lap, and it was Seth who was, by that point, wailing.  I was so shocked that I almost started laughing.  Poor little mite.  The second the tooth was out, Seth was fine and bragging about how many he'd lost, but until that moment, he was (secretly!) pretty funny to watch.

As thrilled as I am for Lizzie and her special growing-up moment, in all honesty I've dreaded the moment when my little girl lost her first tooth; somehow it seems a significant milestone in her growing up and I'm not sure that I'm quite ready for her to grow up yet.  She seems to know this nostalgic part of me, intuitive little thing that she is, because even when I was congratulating her on her lost tooth and her bravery and how much she was growing up, she looked me in the face intently and then leaned in to give me a hug.

"Don't worry, Mommy," she said, patting my shoulder.  "I'll always be your baby."

Thank God.

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Post Script ~ Three weeks ago, Lizzie lost her other bottom middle tooth...she was very proud to show it off to my camera.  Beside the newly missing one, the permanent tooth of the one lost in December is already considerably in.