The Score

I want to relate two things that happened with the boys just for the sake of telling. There's no life lesson here. There's no "awww" ending. I just wanted to put it down so that I don't forget.

Now, Ben's two upper front teeth have been loose for the last month. The first one was naturally coming out, the second he helped when he dove into the couch and hit the armrest. Either way, it was time for them to come out. But Ben wouldn't pull them. He avoided it like the plague even though he knew it would make him some money, which he loves.

So Saturday night he finally decided that he would let Paula try to pull it. An hour, some screams, and a bucket full of tears later it was still in there but only hanging on by a thread. Paula told him she just wanted to see it but then yanked it good. Ben was beside himself. And there was no way he was going to pull the other one.

Now, once the tooth was out, we could see that the permanent tooth was already showing. He had waited so long that he wasn't going to have to go long without front teeth. (He'll probably have them by Christmas and don't start singing!)

The next day we spent at Paula's brother's house celebrating birthdays. Ben and Luke's cousins were there and they played all afternoon. Well, eventually talk around the table turned to Ben's tooth. Ever the showman, Ben decides that now, in front of everyone, is a good time to let Daddy tie some dental floss around the tooth (like we did, unsuccessfully, the night before.)

Once the floss is on, Ben disappears downstairs. Now, Ben was mad at me the night before even though his Mommy was doing all of the pulling. I'm afraid that the boy has developed a complex about disappointing me (no doubt brought on by my parenting style.) So I just figured he didn't want to do it in front of me and I let him go.

Paula fills me in later on what happened: It seems that Ben and his older cousin decided that the best way to get the tooth out was to tie the other end of the floss to some Nerf suction darts that were loaded in a gun; the idea being that if you fired the gun at the wall the tooth would shoot out of Ben's mouth.

Well I don't have to tell you that the Nerf gun was no where near powerful enough to pull a tooth; even a tooth as unsound as this one was. But they thought it was hilarious. Paula compared it to Jackass (a horrible and wonderful television show) when those guys dare each other to do stupid stuff that's going to hurt them. Apparently, Ben and Jacob took turns upping the ante on what to do with the gun, the floss, and Ben's tooth.

They had whipped themselves into such a state of giggling delirium that when Paula suggested Ben stick the suction dart to the sliding glass door and yank his head away, he did it without hesitation and the tooth came out. And Ben was the most surprised of anyone. Score one for Mommy. And we'll go ahead and give one to Ben because accidents count.

Now, the night before I had given Ben a pouch to put his tooth in for the tooth fairy: a little velvet pouch that I had received a rosary in once. I told him that I had found the bag at an antiques store and that the owner said that it used to belong to a King. Ben bought the story and found himself putting his tooth in the same bag that a King's tooth had been in. His worries about the tooth fairy not finding his tooth evaporated. Score one for Daddy.

But Ben came to me the following day to ask if the antiques dealer "had any evidence." I rambled something about it being bad form to question the antiques dealer. Score another one for Ben.

Luke, on the other hand, doesn't have any loose teeth. But he does have a pretty nasty scab on his right knee from running at the pool. He's had a bandaid on it for a few days now and refuses to get down into the water for a bath. He won't let us touch it and it's getting pretty gross looking, old bandaid and all.

So tonight as Luke was getting ready to take a bath I said, "Hey, how about we take that bandaid off?" Luke calmly shot back, "Hey ,No." Score one for Luke.