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Wyatt came home from his first day of first grade with his first lost tooth in hand and the biggest toothy grin you've ever seen. I can't think of a more appropriate thing to happen on the first day of first grade!

That pesky little tooth stayed in his mouth so much longer than I ever imagined. Last spring he would ask me to wiggle it three to five times a day. And he wiggled it himself all day long, which made me crazy because that was when everyone was panicked about the swine flu and there was my boy with his fingers in his mouth at school and everywhere else! It was quite loose then and every day we thought we were on the verge of his big milestone. But it didn't happen. We waited all summer and it didn't happen. He stopped wiggling it in June and we watched as his permanent tooth grew in behind it, crooked.

About a week ago I could tell that it was bothering him again when I noticed that he was chewing like a little old man, using only his back teeth. It was kind of cute how his chin protruded out and his lips almost disappeared. Anyway, he let me give it a shot yesterday which only ended badly and unproductive because he was in such awful freakish pain.

I watched him eat his cereal yesterday like a little old man again, and then he went off to school. He came home a happy boy proudly displaying the tiny little tooth his teacher had taped to a yellow post it note.

I put it in my pocket and kept it until almost bedtime when he asked me for it. I gave it to him to put under his pillow and then he lost it. He was just a little bit disappointed and he went off to sleep. I found it this morning. We will try to get it under his pillow again tonight and apologize to the tooth fairy for the delay.