Miriam's First Loose Tooth

We've hit a major milestone at our house: Miriam has lost her first baby tooth.  I can't believe it!  She's only four and a half!!  I guess the theory that the earlier they teethe, the earlier they lose their baby teeth is spot on.  She cut her first tooth at 5 months old to-the-day.  But even she seems soooo young to me to be losing teeth already.

Before

Catching a "normal" picture of this little girl is impossible.  Pictures like this are her normal.  She's such a goof.  Good thing I love that about her.

Wiggle Wiggle

After

We first noticed the tooth was loose on the 8th when we were flossing/brushing for the night.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't loose even just that morning when we brushed teeth.  It was definitely NOT loose the night before at bedtime.

Miriam wiggled it around every day and was constantly checking it out in the mirror.  Like every 5 minutes.  No joke.  Then on Wednesday, the15th, after I had the girls put in bed (but, of course, not asleep) Miriam came busting out her door proudly proclaiming that her tooth had come out!!  And, in typical fashion for our household, it was one of those moments of mass chaos.  I was already on the phone with Owen (he was in Myrtle Beach on a business trip) and Blaine had just started screaming his little lungs out, so when Miriam came out of her room, she got snapped at just for being out of bed.

I'm not getting much sleep these days so I'm tired...and snappy.  Judge me.

But then what she was saying clicked...what, your tooth is out already?!!!!  "Where'd you put it?" I asked.  "Under my pillow for the Tooth Fairy to find it!" was her duh, why are you even asking such a dumb question response. I guess she didn't get the memo that the first child losing her first tooth is kind of a big deal and mom wants to see the little tooth BEFORE you put it under your pillow.  Well, she went to grab it and somewhere between all the previously mentioned chaos and Liesl jumping around on Miriam's bunk, that little bugger went missing.  Ensue more chaos in the form of lots and lots of tears.  She was certain the Tooth Fairy would skip her for good without the tooth to trade.  I told her we would find it in the morning and put it out the next night.  That gave me some time to put a few Tooth Fairy traditions together too.  We did find it in the morning and kept it safe all day to put out last night.

The tooth pouch

Growing up, my family had a tooth pillow with a little pocket to leave the "lost" tooth in for the Tooth Fairy to take and then she left her reward behind in the same little pocket.  I was planning to make something similar and then stumbled upon this tooth pouch idea and liked it even better.  Plus it didn't require stuffing and blind stitching anything closed.  A win-win in my book.  It was a fast project...or at least it would have been if I wasn't nursing a cranky baby every 5 minutes (I'm only exaggerating a little -- seriously) and had a craft room with everything out and easily accessible already.  I spent maybe 20 minutes actually making it, but start to finish it was a 2 1/2 hour endeavor.  Yeah.  Sigh.

The reward

And now the tooth right next to it is loose too.  Ahh, stop growing up, kid!  You're killing me.