The dangler

Nathan's loose tooth adventures continue. He's lost 4 in the last few weeks. He has an interesting technique of pulling them though--he doesn't. He waits until they fall out. I've always been a proponent of letting my kids be in charge of pulling their own teeth when they're ready or I'll do it if I'm asked. Nathan likes to wait until they fall out while he's eating which is rather disturbing to me. We'll be in the middle of a meal, he'll scream, then this tooth comes flying out of his mouth, landing on the table in all of it's bloody glory. The last one though, about drove us all crazy. Look closely at this picture. You see the tooth on the top left? Your left, not his.

It dangled there, hanging loose for at least 3 weeks. I tried everything to provoke him to pull it out. I offered money, special privileges. One night we were eating at Fish Daddy's. We had a shrimp salsa appetizer and Nathan wanted the last shrimp. I told him he could have it if he would pull that tooth when we got home. He ate the shrimp. He did not pull the tooth. He did ask me to by some apples so it would come out. Even his choir teacher at church told him the tooth was stressing her out. I came home from work last week to find his smile like this...

I guess the dangle had become too much for Kevin. He had pulled it for him. Funny thing, it was soooo loose that Nathan didn't even know it had come out. Kevin tricked him into thinking he needed to try again, but it was already out! Maybe if we had decided to lie to our kids about the tooth fairy, we wouldn't have this problem.