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Sarah Simpson column: The story of the tooth that was lost, then lost again, then found

The extraordinary luck of one first grader
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It’s a pretty special thing to have to go to the office to get a tooth-shaped tooth-holder necklace. Even a bit of tape can’t prevent the contents from falling out, however. (Sarah Simpson/Citizen)

It was just over a year ago the last time I wrote about loose teeth.

Back then, my son had had a loose tooth for several months and had refused to submit to either of his parents ending the drama and yanking the darn thing out. So, for months we had to watch him eat ever so carefully and brush his teeth gingerly, until one evening he opted to bash his head on a pillow twice to pop it out. Strange choice, I’m sure we can all agree, but to his credit, it worked.

Fast forward to September when lo and behold, my daughter was babying a tooth that was just as loose as my son’s had been. Like her big brother’s, it had been wiggly for months.

On occasion, unlike her bro, she’d let me try to pull it out but I could never really get a grip on the slippery sucker so it stayed in her mouth. That is, until Oct. 4 when she burst out of her classroom door with a big toothless grin and a plastic oversized tooth on a string around her neck.

The next few minutes were chaotic as she and her brother tried at the same time to tell me just how she lost it.

“He accidentally punched me in the face and then it fell out when I bit into my sandwich!” she declared seemingly unaware she probably should have been a tad more upset that her brother had smacked her in the kisser.

I told her to smile at me so I could have a look at the new hole in her head and to my great surprise, the wiggly tooth was STILL there! The blow to the face she’d received had apparently knocked the wiggly one’s neighbouring tooth loose!

(I later learned that her brother had actually been helping her get down from some playground equipment and she slipped and smacked into his elbow. There were no technical punches or intent to injure on the part of her brother, in fact he was trying to help her and I suppose he kind of did.)

Anyway, we were walking home from school when my daughter carefully opened the giant tooth necklace all kids get from the office to hold their tooth if they lose it at our school, and to her great surprise, it was empty.

It was her very first lost tooth and it was, well, actually lost!

I instantly began damage control.

“Well, these things happen,” I started slowly, buying myself some extra time to figure out how to spin the situation. “Maybe let’s shake out your shirt to make sure it didn’t fall into that.”

A quick check yielded no results.

“OK, well, maybe run back to your classroom and have a look around. Maybe it’s in or under your desk or something,” I suggested, thinking to myself that would at least give her the feeling that she did really try to find it before conceding that it was gone forever.

The kids ran up ahead to her classroom while I walked behind. I had just arrived back at the classroom door when she ran out with a grin.

“Found it!” she said.

I was shocked.

“No way,” I replied. Like seriously, what are the odds?

Apparently her classmate had seen “something that looks kinda like a tooth” on the floor and upon closer investigation it was indeed her tiny chomper. Let me tell you, some gals have all the luck and my daughter is one of them. If it had been my son, it would never have been seen again.

On Oct. 12 as the kids were getting out of school for the day, my daughter’s teacher called out to me: “She’s falling apart!”

As my child ran across the schoolyard to me, I could see an even bigger toothless grin and yet another plastic tooth necklace around her neck.

The original wiggly tooth had finally met its match — the chocolate coin I’d hidden under the vegetables in her lunch.

“I bit into it and the tooth came out! Just like that!” she beamed. Nobody even had to punch her in the face this time!

This time, just to make sure, I took the necklace right away and opened it up to see a brown lump in the bottom of the container.

“It’s still got chocolate all over it,” she explained.

When we got home I pulled the tooth out to give it a wash but instead of coming clean, it melted in my hand.

My poor daughter had been wandering around all afternoon with a tiny chunk of chocolate in her plastic tooth necklace thinking it was her tooth! Given it’s her second tooth in a week, she didn’t seem too fazed her actual tooth was missing. I fear this second one is gone for good, though. She can’t be that lucky twice. Or can she?