I read a blog post recently by the lovely Tara who blogs at Sticky Fingers, on the topic of wobbly teeth, and I chuckled and agreed with her, because frankly, I am not excited by the whole child loosing teeth thing, and it actually grosses me out, but I kind of put it to the back of my mind, because Big Girl hadn’t shown any signs of wobbly or loose teeth, and my dentist told me she probably would be 7 or so when it happened, because that is when LSH and I started to loose our baby teeth, so i thought i had a while to go before i had to face this shameful little fear of mine…
THEN IT HAPPENED! I heard the cry… “Mummy, one of my teeth is wobbly” and I was brought back to reality with a bump!
I am SO not ready for any of this wobbly tooth business! I am, to be honest, utterly grossed and freaked out by the whole idea. I don’t do teeth, blood and saliva. (I don’t mind blood, just when combined with teeth and saliva) and the whole wobbly tooth in mouth, hanging on by a thread of gum, thing makes me squirm. I can handle most bodily functions and issues, and cope with stomach bugs, cuts, grazes, snotty noses, rashes, and all the delightful things that come with being a parent and looking after your children, but the wobbly tooth thing is where I draw the line!
When I worked at Great Ormond Street, I spent time in ENT surgery, and loved it, but on Monday’s we did what I called then “Mental Dental”, which was basically a long, tedious day of tooth extractions and dental work on children who had health needs whihc meant they needed to have their dental work done under anaesthetic with specialist care during and afterwords. I have seen so many teeth pulled, suctioned up so much blood, and spit, and packaged up so many precious teeth to send home with the patients, that to be honest, I am a little grossed out and not keen on anything to do with teeth. Big Girl keeps coming to show me her wobbly tooth, she is SO proud and excited, and anticipating the arrival of the Tooth Fairy (who apparently brings £5 and sprinkles Fairy Dust everywhere and leaves a note, if what her school friends have told her of their own experiences is true! The price of a bloody little tooth it seems has risen well above the cost of inflation, the Tooth Fairy wants to retire well, and to a Tax Haven in the Caribbean, clearly she is onto a good thing)
So I try not to gag, as I peer into her mouth for a millisecond, and say in my best proud Mummy voice, “oh yes, darling, it is wobbling nicely” whilst backing away as fast as I can, and when she offers me a turn at “wobbling it, because your hand is bigger than mine, it will make it wobble more, and come out quicker” I manage to make up an excuse why I can’t.
I am SUCH an awful parent. My children really have no idea how revolted I am by the whole wobbly tooth thing. I have two sets of teeth at least to get through, and no idea how I am going to maintain my composure on the whole topic.
I have to admit, I am also not looking forward to that stage when the baby teeth are out, and the adult teeth are coming in. It looks, to be honest, so ugly. I KNOW, I am the WORST parent, for thinking that. I will never actually ever tell my children this, but I can’t help thinking it. Hopefully when they are old enough to read this blog, they will understand and forgive me for feeling this way, they know I love them, no matter what, but I don’t think the loosing baby teeth stage is a pretty one!
Why does parenting have to be so jolly complicated and how do I deal with this tooth fairy thing? Maybe I should hand it off to LSH and let him deal with the whole messy job?
Lovely post, hopefully we’re a few years off from visits from the tooth fairy, was so relieved when Monkey’s final tooth came through I’m definately not ready for them to start falling out! Found you through #PoCoLo 🙂
Thanks. The tooth is still “hanging on in there” so I have a few weeks before I have to face the fear! 😉
lol this sounds like me! i hate mouths, belly buttons and feet and if anyone comes near me with either i am a mess 🙁
Oh, I don’t do feet either (did you see my tweet about Veronica the Verruca? That’s fun, dealing with)
I made the mistake of telling my 6yo that if he twisted his tooth it would come out faster – two minutes later he handed me his first tooth for the tooth fairy! He’s lost two now and I’m not a fan of the wobbly ones – but so far a lot less blood and yuck that I was expecting – and the big teeth filled the gaps surprisingly quickly 🙂
I am hoping it passes fast too! 🙂 thanks for commenting!
Yikes – I hadn’t thought about wobbly teeth! The next gross-out phase, once I’m past all the poo….#PoCoLo
I know, it’s unending, isn’t it! 🙂 She now has a verruca (thanks to swimming 2x per week) and I am dealing with that too, and a slight foot phobia into the bargain! Parenting is SO unglamorous sometimes isn’t it?
You are certainly not a bad parent!! You are a good one for admitting your weaknesses but trying to work through them for your daughter :)). It’s not easy dealing with this at all. Thankfully I’m ok with this – I think the fact that it’s £5 scares me more!! ;). Grace got £2 for her first and £1 ever since! Thank you for linking up to PoCoLo and for your support 🙂 xx
Thanks! 🙂 We’ve decided on £2 for the first tooth too, I am not going to £5, that’s insane, I think, but apparently, according to playground chatter, that’s what some parents do!
Wow, that Tooth Fairy is getting pretty generous – what happened to a shiny penny?!? There are lots of things about parenting that are pretty gross really, when you think about it. It’s bad enough having to deal with all of your own bodily functions and fluids without having to take charge of someone else’s. Ew.
I know, I was somewhat horrified at the amount. I’m going on what other parents have said in the playground at school on the £5 thing! We’ve decided she gets £2 for the first tooth and £1/per tooth after that and it goes into her piggybank. I bought her a little bracelet today, with a fairy on it, for the first tooth too, not expensive (£3) but pretty and that’s as far as we go!
£5!!! Good grief, that’s a hundred quid by the time they’ve lost all of their teeth – and that’s per child! I think we’ll go for a nice shiny large £2 coin – but I am definitely not looking forward to the whole wobbly tooth thing either. Love that you have actually done this professionally and are still grossed out!
I know, I was slightly horrified at the £5 bit, apparently that is the going rate, according to the school playground gossip. We are sticking with £2 for the first tooth and then £1 after that, or I will be broke – I think the Tooth Fairy is planning to retire to some tax haven somewhere…. 🙂