All I Want For After-Christmas is to Pull Connor's Two Front Teeth

Our New Year is off to a roaring start, and by roaring I mean the kids have spent two days making horrible noises about the injustice of returning to school. I am totally with them. Many tears were shed last night, including those of a sleepwalking/night-terror-having Connor. This time it was all stress- no need to pee, no low blood sugar, just good old-fashioned anxiety! Woo hoo!

Speaking of Connor- you may recall that he has already lost four bottom teeth to make room for two adult teeth to grow in, (oh, the money we will spend on orthodontics!) and that he's the kind of kid who leaves a loose tooth alone until the new tooth literally pushes the old one out. What you may not know is that recently, three of his top teeth have been loose, presumably to provide space for two new ones. And this time, the whole "wait and let it fall out" thing is not going quite as smoothly. 

As December progressed, the landscape of his mouth changed dramatically. There was a big gap between his front teeth and a side tooth, as one of the front teeth started hanging sideways a bit. Then at dinner one night, he tasted blood. The tooth off to the side was not cooperating with his plans to eat. I said (for the millionth time), "That tooth has got to come out!" So he put a napkin up to it to stop the blood and conceded that it needed to be wiggled a bit, possibly twisted, but only until he felt pain. (So sensitive!) And have I mentioned the fact that Chip has developed a severe aversion to seeing a loose tooth wiggled? Seriously. He's a grown man, and he gets the heebie-jeebies from seeing a tooth move. Ha! Of course Connor and I mess with the loose teeth in front of Chip as often as we can. He's not ticklish, so it's only fair that we have some other way to torture him, right?

So anyway- Connor and I are trying to get the hanging-by-a-thread-bleeding tooth out, and Chip is trying to eat and not barf, and Chloe is contributing by pretending to pull her teeth out since she wants to be just like Connor, ALWAYS, and what do you know- the twisting worked. One down! And you could already see the entirety of another tooth underneath it. Nutjob! Or model of patience. Whichever.

You'd think this would set the whole thing in motion, but no. Apparently it hurt just a bit for just a minute to get that tooth out, so now Connor doesn't want to touch the others. And they need to come out. As time progresses, his crooked front tooth has begun pointing outward as the tooth underneath it grows in and tries to claim a space. Connor is lisping already, and his front teeth aren't even missing yet! It has to be hurting the inside of his lip, but he insists it isn't. And even though it's loose it isn't moving as much now, since the new tooth is blocking the way. I fear a trip to the dentist is in order, but not until Connor admits to some discomfort with the current situation and we can agree that the teeth have to be professionally pulled. Or that I need to punch him in the face and get them out of his head. We'll agree on something, I'm sure of it.