Wiggly

Oh our little Skippidy. She's pretty darn fun to have around. Seriously. I mean, yesterday evening Troy tossed her up onto his shoulders after she was all jammied up and the big kids were still being cattle-prodded through their homework. He took her for a little stroll around the block to get some fresh air and say hello to the neighbors. And she was trying to sing Deck the Halls the whole time. She's just joyful.

One of her favorite pastimes these days is wiggling. She has four loose teeth. They've actually been very slightly loose for months and months and it's only been in the past several weeks that it seems like they're making any progress. She'll just zone out, wiggling her tooth with fervor. (She favors the top right one and pretty much ignores the rest.) Then she takes a break, lifts up her gums and asks if we can see any blood. Then she insists that you take a wiggle. She's following her dad's tooth-losing mantra which is, "Wiggle 'til it hurts, and then wiggle some more." She does get a rather wide-eyed, silent look on her face whenever someone offers to tie a string to her tooth, tie the string to a door and then slam the door. This offer gets made a remarkable number of times. I'm a little surprised at how many people seem perfectly willing to do this to our daughter.

As I look at her sweet little mouth I have mixed emotions. For the most part I'm pretty sad. Seems like the last of babyhood is falling away when those cute little pearls fall out and their little faces are just never the same. Then again, Skippidy developed some decay on the surface of her two front teeth when she was pretty little, maybe only two, and our dentist zipped off the yucky stuff and put in a quick filling. It's been pretty good, but the fillings are a little discolored at this point and so it makes the loss of her little teeth easier to bear. It will be nice to start fresh with clean new teeth. But still....those wee baby teeth - I'm in shock that another last milestone is almost here. The last kid to lose her first tooth!