The loose tooth drama at our house

By the time the third child rolls around, I figured I had this whole loose tooth thing down. Addison's first lost teeth were actually knocked out in a bicycle accident, but I remember the other loose teeth following a pretty normal pattern -- tooth is loose, kid wiggles tooth, tooth eventually gets pulled out, etc.

It should come as no surprise that Lauren does things her own way. Her top teeth have been a bit loose for well over a year, but they aren't getting any looser. Perhaps a month ago, her bottom teeth got loose and kept getting looser.

She refused to wiggle them. She didn't wiggle them with her tongue. She didn't wiggle them with her fingers. And she definitely did not let me wiggle them to see how close they were to coming out. I did know that they was awfully loose.

One afternoon she started telling me something, and I noticed that a tooth was missing. Apparently one was so loose that it fell out without her even noticing. I only know that it fell out that afternoon because I had taken pictures (without a fraggled toothed smile) a few hours earlier.

Snaggle-tooth smile, version 1.0

Last weekend, I noticed that the remaining loose tooth on the bottom was so loose that it was sitting at a crooked angle in her mouth. I was certain it was going to fall out at any moment. She was eating a rice krispy treat during church Sunday morning, and I checked her smile after each bite to see if she had knocked the tooth out yet.

Can that bottom tooth get any looser?

That silly tooth held on until Monday morning. It was so incredibly loose that it fell out in the sink when she was spitting the toothpaste out of her mouth. She managed to grab it before it fell down the drain. Unfortunately, she was playing with it in her room later and lost it.

It's a good thing that the tooth fairy understands lost teeth. :)

Adorable smile, version 2.0