Celebrating The Unprecedented: First Tooth-Loss From Natural Causes

Ian finally lost a premolar, after a slow, dramatic leave-taking, over the course of a few weeks, with daily reports on how the tooth was interacting with the gums, and a few attempts at forcing nature's hand - one involving resorting to a Tootsie Roll (to no avail).  Amy is officially wistful and whimpering about her baby losing his first premolar, but Ian is thrilled at the milestone, saying something like:

"My first tooth fell out without being forced out!"

I was curious as to how the others were "forced out"; Ian thought a bit, and made a list:

"Umm... bat, dentist, brushing teeth, baseball in the face, kicking, et cetera."

In all fairness, Ian isn't alone in this status.  I was listening to old-but-not-yet-processed voicemail messages about a month ago, and there was an especially memorable one from the children's doctor's office, left for Amy by the doctor's assistant, where she said that the good doctor believes that based on the description of Daniel's exit-bound tooth, it will probably fall out normally, and, something like, "and his brother probably only helped it on its way."

It's almost like a stirring break from tradition, to mark one of the seemingly few occasions that either of the boys loses a tooth without spontaneous help from the other one.

(January 27, 2014)