Dear Addie, This week you calmly walked downstairs looking every bit like a lead character in the Vampire Twilight Series with blood smeared on your chin, cheeks, and dripping from your mouth. Keeping with our “Never a dull moment” motto around here I yelled – “What on earth?????”
Now all joking aside, just about any parent would’ve probably had their heart skip a beat at the scene, but with a child that doesn’t necessarily feel pain like most, my mind, unfortunately, didn’t go for any easy explanation here either. Insert my badgering of questions as I ran over to investigate! Did you fall off of something? Bite through your tongue? knock your teeth out? Is your jaw ok? Spoiler alert: you didn’t answer any of those questions. You calmly took my hand and placed my fingers in your drooly, blood-filled mouth and tried to mumble something. I removed my hand and you repeated yourself - “wiggle, wiggle.”
Oh dear Lord. Mark it Ad, we can all breathe a sigh of relief because it was just a loose tooth that you desperately wanted out. Loose teeth. The tooth fairy. A childhood milestone that honest to goodness is never in the front of my mind for you. Weird I know, but it’s true. In our little autism world, when you lose your teeth, it’s just that - we never find them. Gone into the abyss! You either pull them and toss them aside, or swallow them (as for the latter of the two, I’m not exactly sure where it falls on the food pyramid Ad?!). But it’s not often that we see the bloody scene that was standing in front of me on this day. Truth be told, it’s usually only after the big tooth is pretty visible that we notice that the other one is gone. Mother of the year here! The lack of you caring about losing teeth quite frankly has been more disturbing over the years for your siblings. In their younger years, they became quite distraught wondering just how the tooth fairy would find you?! And here Mommy and daddy thought we were getting a free pass on sparkly dollar bills and whimsically written notes with you. Ha! What were we thinking? I think it’s safe to say I’ve personally spent my fair share of time searching carpet for teeth to appease their fantasy vision of someone with wings sneaking into your room to leave money under your pillow. And if it was concluded that you swallowed it, well the great musician known as Meatloaf wrote a whole song that put it best “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.” I’ll let you use your imagination to figure out what “that” is. Now here we were, you asking me to get this tooth out. Something you’ve never asked of us before. You’re kind of an “I’ll take matters into my own hands” kind of gal. With your refusal of letting me use a paper towel or anything other than my bare fingers, this took more time than I thought it would. Drooly, bloody teeth are slippery Addie! With every failed attempt on my part, you were stepping away from me to give it a shot yourself. The tooth was loose but not budging and the drool was like a faucet at this point. The floor, your pajamas, the couch, and my shirt all covered in blood. Now would’ve been the perfect time for an annoying solicitor to come to the door, but I digress. You were getting increasingly frustrated and really wanted it out. I took a deep breath and with one good crack, it broke loose! It was out! Then in true Addie fashion, I stood in front of you holding the tooth, you looked at it, went and got a bowl, some carrots, and sat down to have a snack like nothing ever happened.
I set the tooth on the counter to wash my hands and wipe up the bloody scene a bit. Then in true mommy fashion, I got distracted and started making dinner. You know, just another day. It was only when dad came home from work and said "what’s that?" to the tooth on the counter that I remembered I left it there. Ha! I guess to me it was “just a tooth” too Addie. We're a mess.
So this week you lost another tooth. It didn’t happen without some drama, but I guess that’s what makes our lives interesting. And while I was always Team Edward, I was happy it was just a tooth ;)
Love,
Mom
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