It's Official - Ben's not a baby anymore

On Wednesday April 15th, Ben lost his first tooth, well kind of. I should say, he lost his first tooth that came out naturally. His front two teeth came out when he was 23 months old. Since I didn't write this story down when it happened I thought I would now (see story below).
Ben's bottom tooth had been very loose. He couldn't keep his hands out of his mouth from wiggling it every spare second. As you can see by the picture, it became so loose that I can't believe that it didn't just fall out. I was not about to pull it out so we waited for Rick to come home from work. Before dinner, Ben was showing Rick how loose his tooth was. Rick decided to get a tissue and see if it would just come out. He wiggled it for a minute and then he stopped. Rick held up the tooth!! Neither Ben or I realized he had pulled it out. Ben was so excited and thought it was very cool.

Before
After

A week and a half later, we were in Sacrament meeting at church. His other bottom tooth was a little loose too. Ben mentioned that it was really loose and he thought it should come out right now. Well, since sacrament meeting is not a very appropriate place for someone to get a tooth pulled out, we told Ben that Daddy would look at it when we got home from church. About five minutes later, Ben's tooth just falls out onto the pew!! We all were in shock. A nice family sitting in front of us handed back a plastic egg for me to put the tooth in while Rick and Ben made their way out of the chapel to wash his mouth out. Luckily since it was so loose it didn't really bleed much. Talk about an exciting sacrament meeting.

The spoils of the Tooth fairy. Olivia kept calling her the 'Fairy Tooth Mother'

One big hole. It's pretty funny to see him use a straw. He doesn't even have to open his mouth.

I just can't believe Ben is old enough to have lost teeth. Time really does fly. I think this officially means he is not a baby anymore but he will always be my baby boy.

Story of how he lost his first two teeth

In August of 2005, I was grocery shopping at Wal-Mart in Georgia. After I had finished, I had told Ben that since he was so good in the store we could go in the play area and ride the carousel. I took him out of the buggy and he walked over to look at a video game. In front of the game on the floor, was a mat. Ben tripped on the mat and fell into the video game. At the bottom of the game was a metal bar. Ben fell directly into it. I picked him up and he was screaming with blood running down his face. I could immediately see that his front 2 teeth were broken. I grabbed Ben & ran to the car not sure if I should go to a dentist or emergency room. Since he wasn't two years old yet, we hadn't been to the dentist. I started driving towards the hospital and calling Rick. He called our pediatrician (I couldn't hear anything because Ben was screaming so badly) and Dr. Messic called a pediatric dentist so that I could go right there. I met Rick at the office with Ben, who had calmed down a little. The nurse took us right back to look at the damage and take x-rays. The good news was his adult teeth were unharmed and had no trauma or damage. The bad news was his baby teeth were broken. We would have to wait and see if the baby teeth would abscess. If they got infected they would have to be removed. If they didn't we could cap his broken teeth.

The next three weeks I kept looking for a blister on his gums (the sign that it is infected) but it never appeared. Ben started getting a swollen upper lip which then grew to around his nose. The doctor told us to come in immediately to have his teeth removed.

The whole process was very quick. They gave him gas and while Rick held him, they pulled out his teeth. I stood up and walked over Ben. I told him "what a brave boy he was" and that "he did such a good job." I was so nervous that I felt like I hadn't really been breathing when they were doing the procedure. I felt a little lightheaded and sat down. Then I really felt like I was going to pass out and ended up in the chair in the next room with my feet above my head. So embarrassing!!

Anyway, we headed home and by dinnertime you would never know anything had happened. He was acting like my sweet Ben. He even ate dinner with no problem at all.