Rayna's New Smile

Rayna has lost her 2 bottom teeth, and they have grown in completely. It's been so long since we lost any teeth in our home that it was a surprise to me to see one of Rayna's front teeth hanging all skiwompus. She showed me that she has several loose teeth and that her 2 front teeth were very loose. She has been working on it daily to get it loose enough to fall out. The last few days I've had to take a second look whenever she smiles. Her teeth have always been perfectly straight, and so even this slight variation was catching me off guard.

We went to my parents' house on Sunday and Rayna proudly showed off her very loose tooth. My mom is always such a good sport and always seems to be sincerely interested in my kids and whatever they seem to be fascinated with at the moment. The next time I saw Rayna, she had a string of dental floss hanging out of her mouth. My mom had tied a string to her tooth to help her pull it out. It brought back memories of my childhood as I remembered my own string hanging from my mouth in an effort to pull out my own loose teeth. Everyone took their turn teasing and tugging at her string (the exact thing I HATED about having a string on my loose tooth. For some reason everyone thinks that as soon as you have a string hanging from your mouth it means that your sensitive loose tooth is public property.) Despite every one's efforts, the tooth didn't come out before the day was over.

The next morning Rayna woke up, string and tooth still in tact and carried out a normal day of playing with friends. That night before she went to bed, she came to me and asked if I would just pull her tooth out. It was soooo loose I could see the top of it if I pushed it to one side. I tugged gently a couple of times and decided I could drag it out, or I could get it over with. So the next tug was a "firm" one and out it came. I don't think Rayna was expecting that because she let out a big "OOOHHhhh!". She went to the bathroom and I told her to put some cold water on it to help the pain. She was pretty uncomfortable, and I was feeling bad, so trying a distraction method, I suggested she show us her new smile. She lifted her head up, smiled in the mirror, and the pain was history. She started to giggle and then she'd admire her reflection and giggle some more. She showed everyone she could find to show...including our next door neighbor who was mowing his lawn.

Today she says it's hard to say "thhh". I'm still getting used to her new look, and I probably won't even get a chance to before her other front tooth comes out...and another one on the bottom. What a cutie.