Lost, 09 February 2013

Today I spoke on the phone (thanks, Skype!) with a man from York, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom.  How's that for a pedigree?

Aaaand, I am a typical American--such a sucker for the accent!!!  Oh my goodness.  I think I'd started believing that only movie actors and actresses spoke in such beautiful, lilting tones, and used expressions like "lovely!" and "brilliant!"  But it turns out that real people do too--assuming that the man running our York bed and breakfast is a real person, which I rather expect he is.

I'm such an American!

Today I also discovered a new hole in G's mouth where a loose tooth had been.  The discovery occurred during breakfast, and I explained he must have swallowed it while eating this morning, or perhaps during dinner last night.

He cried!  He was so disappointed he didn't get to see his tooth!  That is NOT how I feel about the matter, being thoroughly--albeit perhaps irrationally--disgusted by the whole tooth-loss thing myself.  I hugged him and cuddled him, keeping my thoughts of "Phew!  Didn't have to deal with pulling it!" to myself.  I assured him that if he wrote a note explaining what had happened and put it under his pillow, the Tooth Fairy would still leave money.  ("NOT the Tooth Fairy," G grumped.  "I don't like playing about the Tooth Fairy.  It's you or Daddy."  Fine.  Have it your way, spoil sport.)  But after he wrote his note, the thought occurred to me that perhaps the tooth fell out while he was asleep.

You wanna know how cool of a mom I am?  I got down on my hands and knees and scanned the carpet with my hand to see if I could find a tiny little piece of my child's mouth on the floor.  Unfortunately for me, I found it!  Eeeeeew.  G was overjoyed!  His whole day got better when he saw his tooth.

But the story doesn't end there.  As he attempted to put the thing into a paper bag (to go under the pillow, of course), he dropped it.  Uh huh.  Until today, I thought getting a carpet that would camouflage dropped stuff was a good idea.  So what did Mommy do?  She shook out the nearby blankets, brushed out the folds of G's clothes, scanned the carpet with her hand...and found the tooth again.  Eeeeeew!  Then, between the living room and his bedroom, as he attempted to deliver the bag to his bed, I heard, "Uh oh!"

You guessed it.  "Mommy, I think I turned the bag upside down.  I can't find my tooth."

Just how many times can the same tooth get lost?!  At least I knew the drill (no pun intended) and went straight to the dratted carpet.  When I couldn't find it, I took the bag from him and bravely stuck my hand into it, where one of my fingers encountered a small, pointy, hard thing in one of the corners.  "G, your tooth is still in the bag," I admonished wearily.  Sigh.

But now that the bag is no longer being moved around or handled, I think the tooth can no longer be lost.

And once it's swapped out in the middle of the night for four shiny quarters, what happens to that tooth is alllllllllll my decision.  You can't have your tooth and eat it too!