Personalities and Loose Teeth

You can tell a lot about a child by the way they deal with their loose teeth. I have first- and second-hand experience with this. First, with myself and now with my own children.

The child who wiggles her tooth hesitantly with one finger and clamps her mouth shut at the first sign of anyone seeking to check on its progress tends to be a reserved, timid child. She knows the tooth will eventually fall out but there is no rush. After all, this is a big change and change is usually a very bad thing. It's perfectly okay to have an adult tooth sit right behind the baby tooth for weeks. This is the best way to adjust to this change.

The child who yanks and twists energetically at a loose tooth is the rambunctious, energetic, attention-seeking type. He takes every opportunity to open his mouth and show off his prize. The sooner that baby tooth is out, the sooner the Tooth Fairy brings his money, right? This child rarely, if ever, leaves a tooth hanging on by a thread because he will jerk it out first.

I got to thinking about this last week because Miriam has her first loose tooth. The adult tooth began making its appearance before Christmas. It's now almost completely in and looks very odd, sitting behind the baby tooth. She's like the human version of a 6-year-old shark. She is terrified that the thing is going to fall out while she's asleep, or worse, at school. Oh, the horror! She refuses to bite food with the teeth in the middle of her mouth; everything is eaten from the side of her mouth. She brushes that tooth and the ones around it very gingerly, if at all.

Solomon, on the other hand, has lost about 7 teeth in the last two years. He even once pulled out 3 teeth in the span of about 10 days. The child is a maniac when it comes to loosing teeth. He loves it. He pestered me constantly, long before his sixth birthday until he finally had his first loose tooth. "Mom, when am I going to lose a tooth?" "Mom, this tooth is a tiny bit loose!" "Hey, did that tooth just move?" He's constantly checking the remaining baby teeth for any possibility of instability.

It remains to be seen how Samuel will deal with loose teeth. But from watching the way he handles most other things in his day to day life, I think he'll fall some where between the furious yanker and the tentative wiggler. He will be alternately excited and disgusted by it. He may eventually screw up his courage and yank one out quickly. He'll regret it when it bleeds a bit and remember it for the rest of his life as a mortal mistake.

In case you're wondering, I was the timid type. I hated the idea of loosing teeth. There was that oddly disgusting, fascinating sensation of a part of my body moving. On its own. Gross. There was the possibility that there would be blood when it finally came out. And of course, there was the chance that it would fall out while I was asleep and then I would swallow it. Grosser still.

I am still unnerved by most things having to do with teeth. I have this recurring nightmare in which my teeth begin disentigrating and falling out one after the other, until it is all I can do to spit out bits of enamel and dentin. Disgusting. I can't help but think that's a holdover from being 8 years old and wiggling a tooth with my tongue and suddenly it just fell out of the socket on its own and I had to spit it out.