TEETH

The last several weeks of my life have revolved around teeth, teeth, and more teeth...

OLD TEETH,

Tanner lost his first tooth in the summer, left it under his pillow, tooth fairy came, new tooth grew in... and repeated the process one more time.

Tooth Fairy Says:  EASY PEASY

NEW TEETH

About two months ago, after a few very long painful weeks, Charlotte grew two new teeth and now she likes to bite everything and everyone!

Tooth Fairy Says: What a pain in the tooth, but what baby doesn't go through that?

LOST TEETH

 When Tanner lost his teeth, Ashlyn was quite let down.  After all, they are twins and twins are supposed to do everything at the same time, right?  But she didn't even have so much as a hint of a loose tooth, nothing was giving, UNTIL dinnertime.

Mom preparing the food at our house for dinner is the equivalent to a referee starting a WWF Smackdown tournament.  Every night without fail, three little kids run around, and around, and around, chasing eachother, screaming, squealing, and then crying, usually in pain.  On the particular night in question, Ashlyn and Tanner both rounded a corner at the same time, smacked heads, cut Ashlyn's lip and knocked her front teeth loose.

Flash forward a month later and Mom finally pulls out the wiggly little thing, unfortunately, we never saw it again.  I suspect Ashlyn swallowed it, though she swears she didn't.  She had to write a letter to the tooth fairy explaining the whole ordeal and was delighted when the toothfairy left her a note under her pillow with a dollar bill!  And then lost another tooth, then literally LOST that tooth, found it, then LOST it again, then found it again.  The tooth fairy did not have the good grace to leave a note that time.

Tooth Fairy Says:  This girl really likes to LOSE her teeth!

 KNOCKED OUT TEETH

I guess Ian was feeling pretty left out on the tooth wagon, so on Wednesday night we were visiting with my mom and dad.  It was time to go, kids were heading out to the truck and the next thing we knew Ian was SCREAMING and blood was gushing from his mouth.  I looked in and could see a gaping hole.  Zac thought all of his teeth were cracked and I was in a complete panic.  I finally got the bleeding to stop enough to see that it was just the front tooth that was missing, with nothing else cracked.  Zac had the presense of mind to look outside and found the tooth with root attached, then he stuck it in a glass of milk, because let's just say this isn't the first time in Zac's family that a tooth had been knocked out.  We called our local friendly dentist at home and he told us to take that tooth and stick it right back in to the gaping hole and that it should stay!  I had no idea that you could even do that... so who got to be the lucky one to shove the tooth back in the hole?  My mom was out.  She was hiding with Ashlyn in the other room so that they wouldn't have to watch.  My dad volunteered to hold the little guys arms down and I really didn't think, Mr. Pass Out at the Sight of Blood was going to step up to the occasion, so I got to shove the tooth back in.  It was the worst thing I have ever done to any of my children.  As soon as it was over, Ian calmed right down and even fell asleep, slept through the whole night and then in the morning told me how much better he felt.  He hasn't cried, whined, or complained since.  I can't believe what a trooper he has been about the whole thing!  It has almost been a whole week and the tooth is still hanging in there, who knew?

AND when this was all going on, Ashlyn and my mom thought it would be a great time to pull Ashlyn's other tooth... and as I mentioned previously, it launched across the kitchen and got lost (Zac found it) and you know the rest of that one.  But since the tooth fairy was already at our house that night, she also visited Ian, leaving him a note telling him how tough he was and gave him a dollar too.

Tooth Fairy Says:  I have had it with the Fillmores, if they are that hard up for Christmas cash, they are going to have to catch a leprechaun, or tap out the Easter Bunny, because I am not going back there for a while (unless Ashlyn keeps working that other front tooth and then I guess I have no choice!)