First Lost Tooth, But Not Without a Fight...

Marx believed that worldwide communist revolution was destined to become history, and that, even though this process was inevitable, the communists themselves could serve as "the midwives to history."

Marx was wrong. But he had an interesting idea about history having a midwife that could move it through to fruition, and that kind of pattern has its parallels in real life.

I believe that it was an inevitable historical process that Ian would, sooner or later, lose a baby-tooth for the first time. And this happened last Thursday, February 18, 2010. But what I had not anticipated was that this historical process could have a midwife. However, young Daniel turned out to be just this midwife.

Ian's lower-front-left tooth had been loose for some time, and he enjoyed wiggling it and having each of us wiggle it as well. But Daniel inadvertantly helped the tooth become looser - so loose as to exit its socket, by kicking Ian in the face. I believe it happened in one of their standard skirmishes, but the results were somewhat out of the ordinary.

Meanwhile, Amy outed the tooth fairy. She dropped the "There's no tooth fairy" bomb without much of a fight - I think Ian asked her, so she decided to tell the "truth". But this was no setback for Ian. He still expected money under his pillow, and then spent the entire following Saturday filibustering about how and when we would go to Toys-R-Us to get him his much-deserved toothloss toy car. [Ultimately we ended up going to a "learning" supplies store instead, spending much, much more money in the aggregate, for almost everybody in the family...]

Somehow, nobody is surprised that Ian's first baby-tooth-loss was catalyzed by Daniel's foot. But it's also not surprising that Ian found a very innovative angle for glee from the whole event. Daniel's foot got "bloody" from the process, and this seems to have pleased his older brother.

Ultimately, things seem to work out to everyone's satisfaction.

(March, 2010)