Victory in the Tooth Department

One day a couple years ago we discovered that Caleb had "shark teeth" behind his bottom front teeth. We didn't even know that was a thing, but after emailing with a college friend who's a dentist, it was confirmed that his adult teeth were coming in even though his baby teeth hadn't fallen out yet.  We thought it was a sure sign that his baby teeth would loosen up real fast and fall out.

Boy, were we wrong!

Long story short, those baby teeth in the front never came out on their own.  The adult teeth were fully in and hanging out behind the baby teeth for about 9 months (yes, you read that right) before we got him into a pediatric dentist to have them pulled.  We waited so long because we kept thinking and hoping that the baby teeth would fall out on their own.  When they didn't, we waited until we were back in the States because we knew that having teeth pulled would be traumatic for this kid.  (It definitely was.)

But finally we got those babies yanked out and the adult teeth were free to move into place where they belonged.

Fast forward to a few months ago when Caleb got some more loose teeth.  We were curious how this round would go, and dismayed when those teeth were also not super excited to fall out on their own.  Long story short, Eli had to yank them out.  It was traumatic with plenty of screaming and tears but it simply had to be done.

Caleb and the Tooth Department have not been on the best of terms since, well, ever.

Then his two front teeth on the top became loose.  We prepared ourselves for Round 3 of Traumatic Teeth Pulling.  But then, by a great miracle of God, one of those teeth fell out on New Year's Day and Caleb didn't even know it!!!  I kid you not.  That boy had been running around outside all afternoon and when he came in and said something to me it was glaringly obvious that a tooth was missing.  When I asked him about it, he had no idea what I was talking about!

Praise the Lord!!!

It felt like such a promise of what God has in store for our son this year.  A tooth falling out without incident?  It was no less than a great grace of God if not a true miracle.

That isn't to say that the second front tooth also came out without incident.  Au contraire.  It was basically falling out but just wouldn't finish the job so Eli yanked it out since the adult tooth was coming in behind it, and we were back to Square One with the screaming and crying and trauma.  BUT, we've officially experienced a major victory in the Tooth Department and we greatly rejoice in that!

Plus, with both front teeth missing Caleb has been "matchy matchy" with this sweet girl :)  Olive and Caleb are less than two months apart in age and it's been fun to watch the teeth falling out for these 7-year olds.

We've got our fingers crossed that we'll see more victories in the Tooth Department this year!