The Tooth the Whole Tooth & Nothing but the Tooth

First let me say that Atley is bald in this picture because he took a pair of scissors to his hair at school and cut six-to-the-skin patches off of his head. Now onto the story.

Atley often lamented about the fact that he was the only kid in his class at school or church who had not lost a tooth yet. Well, it finally happened but not quite in the way I imagined. Then again, everything Atley does is unique. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that his first tooth loss story would be the same. Usually, a tooth starts to wiggle. The kid plays with it, the kid's mom plays with it, the kid's dad threatens to yank it out with his pliers, but it takes days maybe even a week to completely fall out, right? Sometimes it hangs grossly by some nasty little stringy thing and the child it belongs too screams in protest if anyone tries to get near it. All of this gives you time to make a very special Tooth Fairy pillow and checkout all of the Tooth Fairy library books in existence in preparation for the big day. Again none of that happened for us.
Last night after the boys had been tucked snugly in their beds for nearly an hour we hear the elephant feet of our oldest son bouncing down the stairs. He gets to Scott first and says, "I finally lost a tooth!" Scott's reply, "What? Did you even have a loose tooth?" Well, sure enough there he was with a tiny little tooth in his hand and a bloody mouth. Don't you usually lose your top teeth first? Anyway, Atley lost one of his bottom teeth. When prompted to get the whole story he explained how he was lying in bed wishing really hard that he would lose a tooth soon because he could really use the money. At this point, he began to pull really hard on each tooth in his mouth and when he had almost pulled his very hardest on each tooth the last one came right out! The tooth fairy visited and he received some of the cold hard cash he so desperately needed.
Today after school he said, "Mom, I really hope I don't lose anymore teeth because it kinda creeps me out when I rub my tongue on this gummy part in my mouth." Apparently, the moment he had been anxiously waiting for was a big disappointment.