Toothless

Hey, I WE have to look at this grossness, SO DO YOU!

Thankfully that very wiggly tooth FINALLY came out.  The ToothFairy had quite a hard time, however.  Not only did the boys move into a new room at our house but he lost the tooth on a sleep-over where the kids were kind of sleeping in a pile. Tough job.

Ah, much better!

This tooth has been on quite a long journey.  Somewhere along the way, it took a knock.  This knock didn't even register as anything significant, but we found out on a routine cleaning that in fact the tooth was dead.  This was lucky timing, actually.  There was a tiny infection and the dentist spotted it and we had a plan of attack. The dead tooth needed to stay in to hold the spot -- it would be another few years until that new tooth was ready.  But if the infection stayed it would discolour/damage the developing/emerging adult tooth.

So -- the tooth got drilled and filled (a root canal! but with no numbing or anything -- the tooth was dead and easy to access so) and in it stayed.  Cut to October 2013...the dead tooth was wiggly!  we waited and waited and waited.  It just got more wiggly.  MONTHS of wiggling.

And then....this is gross.....

It was SO WIGGLY that the sharp little root was wiggling it's way through his gum and little bits of the tooth's root was breaking off and popping out a hole in his gum.  Totally gross.

We returned to the dentist in a complete panic.  She was not in a panic at all.  She had a quick look and so sweetly gave PFPJ the choice:  "Leave it in or take it out?"  She presented the pros and cons - to him, not us, which is another reason we love this dentist office...they are just incredible with kids.  Come to Zambia just to see the dentist, it's worth the long journey.  

Taking it out was probably going to make it immediately more comfortable but gums heal/seal so quickly that the adult tooth-in-waiting would have to work it's way through when it was ready...which would basically mean TEETHING! oh no!  She did think that it would be a few more weeks until the tooth fell out on it's own, but she was confident that it would fall out on its own.  (They had a visit from an 8 year old right before Finny's appointment who did NOT have the choice so she was happy to see that PFPJ actually could make the decision himself.  We really love this dentist).

So - the nasty-wiggly tooth stayed.  But less than week later, it fell out and we have that endearing smile that can only belong to that of an 8 year old. Just in time for halloween.  (He dressed up as Ichiro and went around the neighbourhood with a bunch of vampires so by the end of the day he had fake blood from the vampires, real blood from a bloody-nose and his vampire teeth, very appropriate.)