I recounted the loss of my daughter’s tooth on an earlier post. Well she has more loose teeth now and recently another one started to give way. Hope had been pushing it with her tongue for days, but as loose as it was, it just refused to come out. I’d try to give it a good hard wiggle, but she would wince and I did not want to hurt her. The worst part is that Amy’s parents had harvested corn on the cob from their garden but Hope did not want to eat any because of her tooth. Everything she ate was soft.

We tried to get her to wiggle it more or let me at it, but she was adamant about not messing with the tooth. I kept offering to take it out for her and told her it would not hurt, but she wasn’t budging. It took the better part of a week before the tooth became very loose, so loose that I thought it would fall out at any minute. Or course, this happened right at bed time and I was concerned that she might lose it during the night and we’d never find it. These baby teeth are tiny. So I decided that the tooth needed to come out tonight.

The problem was that I did not want Hope to lose her trust in me. I was not going to lie to her about “just wiggling” it and then yanking it out. I sent her to the bathroom to brush her teeth, hoping it would loosen more. Then I wiggled it a little and there was a lot of give there. I told Hope I could get it out on the count of three (planning on twisting it out on the count of two) but she started crying and shaking her head. She was scared and I understood that. Still I wanted to get that tooth out. I kept trying to persuade her but she kept crying and saying no. As we talked and I comforted her, we kept wiggling the tooth.

Soon, it was lying down in her mouth, still connected but you could see the hollow part underneath. There was no doubt in my mind, it had to come out now. Hope still did not want to; she was afraid it would bleed. We tried to comfort her and tell her the bleeding would be minor, but she was very upset. As we talked I continued to rock the tooth back and forth and with a quick pull, out it came. She was upset at the blood in her mouth and we gave her a cup of water to swish it out.

Eventually, she calmed down and then became excited about the tooth. I made sure she did not hold anything against me, and she assured me she didn’t. Still, I was not very satisfied by how it all played out. I wanted her to trust me, that I would take care of her and not hurt her. I’m sure she believed that but the enormity of the situation also competed for that trust. She knew that if she did nothing, then she would not be hurt, but if she did something she might be hurt. The problem with that thinking is that something will need to be done eventually, she is just putting off the inevitable. Now she is only 6 so I don’t expect her to understand that, but I do.

Still I probably should not have forced the issue. There was no real danger in losing the tooth during the night, just some disappointment. Also trying to grab that tiny tooth and work it out was tricky. My big fingers in her mouth could not have been comfortable. Plus once I got it in my head that the tooth needed to come out, I could not be budged.

Now this is no big deal. Hope is far from traumatized for the whole thing and now looks back on it as nothing but positive. But I want to make sure I handle the next one differently. I’ll still push Hope to taking action, but I’ll give her more of a chance to take that action herself. Also I think we’ll use dental floss to help loosen the tooth. Hopefully that will pull it out for us.

I tell this story to get you to think about minor decisions in your life. There is no need to postpone small, inevitable, things like this. On the other hand, you cannot force someone to make a decision and not have it affect your relationship with them. It is important to treat each other gently, prodding them into make the correct decision but respecting them if they ultimately choose not to. In the long run what will happen will happen, you just need to be available.