Toof-less

When I was in second grade, Mrs. Van Dyke had little paper teeth with each child's name on them hung above the chalk board on one wall of her classroom. Every time you lost a real tooth, she placed a little star on your paper tooth. Many of my classmates began the year with lots of stars and hockey-player smiles to prove it. As the school year progressed, those paper teeth filled up with a glut of multi-colored stars. All those teeth except mine.

My paper tooth started the year starless and ended the year starless. If I was a sneetch, you can imagine what my belly was lacking.

I can remember feeling like I was a failure as a baby tooth shedder. That paper tooth was a constant reminder that I still had a mouthful of baby teeth - BABY TEETH!

And if the starless paper wasn't bad enough, everytime someone lost a tooth, there was a reminder from at least 10 of my classmates that I still had a baby mouth. None of my teeth were even wobbly.

I've repressed the age that I finally lost my first baby tooth, but I can still remember really wanting to make a big deal of it to a contemporary who was not impressed in the least. Hmmmm . . .


Becca has far outdone her father by losing her two front teeth just one week apart from each other, and it only took the tooth fairy five nights to retrieve the first one. (Down to two nights for the second.)

Go Becca!