The Great Toothless One

Thursday.

March 31st.

1:47 P.M.

Spring Break 2011.

My fabulous, glorious, smart, sweet, gigantic-toothed 9-year old son smacked his face on a water slide and knocked out his front tooth.

His permanent front tooth.

Poor little poop-shitz.

I cried (when he went to bed). His dad cried, his two older sisters cried, his Grannie cried, his older brother Skyped from China and kindly, warmly, and lovingly told Toothless he looked good. And his younger sister, well, she was at a play-date and became wickedly jealous that he got 2 milkshakes for supper. Life's hard when your 7 and your brother is getting all the attention.

But Himself, the ferocious toothless one had only one concern: that he not get the replacement tooth they bond to the other teeth. No. He wants the "flipper tooth," so he can pop it out and scare the little kids.

Me? I want to have a ceremony (though we have nothing to bury--the tooth itself being somewhere in the drainage system of the wave-pool). I want to host a wake to say goodbye to "the tooth." A wake where we sing laments to the tooth's courage, encourage spontaneous eulogies from tipsy cousins, and drink copious toasts to the lost money we were going to use for a holiday that's now in the hands of our dentist.

My poor, sweet little man. His poor, huge lost tooth. Life will never be the same.

But, it could have been worse, I suppose. He might have lost one of his permanent teeth--oh shit! wait. It was a permanent tooth. Alright, it couldn't have been much worse.

Poor little poop-shitz.