The boys and I built a short, fast sled run yesterday afternoon from the western slope of our yard across the neighbor's driveway and into her front yard. After a few shakedown runs, it congealed nicely into an icy track, a 30-foot high-intensity mini-bobsled run that in short order had the boys howling with delight and my upper body aching from the strains of repeatedly launching them down it. Needless to say, I cried "Uncle!" long before they were ready to quit, but nonetheless, a good time was had by all. And whether by pure coincidence or nature simply rewarding our stubborn refusal to yield and hide, the snow stopped falling just after we trudged back inside for a well deserved hot chocolate.
Isaac lost his first tooth the day after Thanksgiving, a major milestone and a painstaking process which unfolded with great drama over an intense 36 hours. He's been feeling peer pressure on this, as most of his classmates are happily gap toothed and have been for some time. So it was with a mixture equal parts excitement and fear that he revealed the dangling incisor to us, not sure what was now required of him.
"Well, you have to pull it out," we responded, and the change in pallor that overcame him quickly indicated he was expecting something a little less intrusive to happen.
Still, he worked it and worked it and worked it, obsessively, all day and into the night, twisting and pushing and rolling, all the while providing play-by-play and the occasional yelp of discomfort. His single-mindedness was impressive; he bore down with the focus of a heart surgeon performing a quadruple bypass.
Friday morning, his face flush with triumph, he woke us with a cry of "I got it!" There, cradled gently in his hand, was a tiny speck of a tooth, and on his full-moon face a grin big as all outdoors, a gummy tableaux of pride, relief, and unabashed joy.
The tooth fairy slipped him a buck that night.
And his old man took him to a basketball game and let him gum popcorn the next.
3 comments:
I still cringe to think of pulling teeth out, but that's largely because I've had it done as an adult. Eeeeee.
Man, I'm jealous of the northern winter - sledding is a blast. Don't do much of it down here. Or any of it. But we can surf.
Loose teeth are the one thing that freak me out.
Good daddyin'!
Ah yes, losing teeth. You get caught up in that tooth fairy thing and it can be a bit of a trap. Especially when you forget to do your duty and the following morning you are greeted by the wail of 'She hasn't been!' I encouraged the BA to write a letter of complaint once when the tooth fairy was two nights late. I think I still have it :-)
Oh and sledding! Yeah! When we lived in Toronto, that, and outdoor iceskating, were two of our fave things.
Post a Comment