My daughter has a loose tooth. This isn’t the first loose tooth she’s had but the process hasn’t gotten easier.

The first two teeth became loose, she wiggled them and eventually they fell out. The next two loosened, she wiggled them, the new teeth grew in behind them and the darned baby teeth tightened back up. Both of the stubborn teeth had to eventually be pulled by her dentist and what an ordeal that was. Now, most children would resist the dentist pulling a tooth, but “Sugar” fights with everything she’s got. She works herself up into a frenzy and is sure the dentist is going to do something horrible to her. Before you get the impression that Sugar is overly sensitive or that we coddle her or anything like that you should know that she’s one tough cookie and those who know her are surprised at her fear of dentists. On a side note, for a post regarding teeth and dentistry I sure seem to use a lot of sugary references, don’t I?

So last week Sugar noticed that she had another loose tooth and started wiggling that thing like crazy to avoid the dentist. She asked her dad to help her pull it but then shied away when his hands got close to her mouth. The other problem here is she has tiny teeth and a small mouth and his hands are fairly large so he wasn’t quite sure how this was going to work anyway.

Last night the loose tooth finally got to be a bit too much for her. She got out of bed to once again have Dad try to pull it. (Looking back, it was probably partly a stall tactic too.) Again, she was scared. Finally my husband said, “Just pull it out. What’s the worst that could happen?” (We really need to stop asking our kids that question!) She replied, “I could swallow it, choke and DIE.” Needless to say, the tooth is still hanging in there.