Two days before Christmas, I stood in the kitchen, coffee cup clutched in one hand, lightly bouncing my six-year-old daughter's front tooth on my other palm. She stood in front of me, empty socket stuffed with a wad of tissue as she poked at the tooth.

"It's not very big," she said.
"No, it's not," I agreed.

I remember when that sucker pushed through her gums the first time. A mere two weeks before, her first two teeth, the bottom front teeth had strained upwards through her gums. The tiny white ridges were sharp against my breast as she latched, but I was grateful that they were out. "That was the hurting part, kiddo." I told her as her cheeks bunched and dimpled. She was a noisy, sweaty nurseling, full of grunts and gulps and exaggerated sighs. Thank goodness her verbal outbursts while eating have tapered off to a socially acceptable level.

Her pathetic screams, swollen gums and incessant drooling sent me running to the internet message board of mothers that I had come to rely on for advice. In my freaked out, my baby is broken and I don't want to do anything to damage her further state, I didn't want to hear my mother's advice. I was convinced that if it worked in 1973, it was irrelevant to my style of parenting. I was hesitant to try any teething medicine, and afraid that using ice to numb her gums would somehow destroy our hard-won nursing relationship. My online friends were able to convince me to try homeopathic teething tablets, and frozen washcloths, and recommended alcohol. For me. Heh.

Those first two teeth seemed like they took forever to appear. We had a week of peace and then the top two started to push through. There was screaming and gnashing and wailing and drooling. The baby was pretty upset, too. After a sleepless week, I finally felt a little sharp ridge along her swollen gums, followed the next day by its twin. We both slept like the dead for a few days after those top teeth erupted.

The bottom two teeth fell out exactly six years after they appeared. I know this because I actually recorded the dates in my oldest's baby book. I occasionally throw a photo or memento in my youngest's book, but there is no careful recording of anything. Sigh. I made a huge stink out of having a specific baby book for my children. Now the firsts and lasts are recorded in my blog, if at all.

These top teeth have taken a little longer, but the first is gone, and the second is very loose. Already I can see the 'adult' teeth pushing through, making their way down to create that snaggletoothed effect that six-and seven-year-olds sport until their jaw grows enough to accomodate those giant choppers. We're at the start of the funny-looking years. I can only hope they manage them with more grace than I did.

Standing in front of me, my girl pulled out the wad of bloody tissue and grimaced at me with her jack-o-lantern smile. She wiggled the tooth next to the hole, and announced that she wanted spaghetti for dinner so she can suck the noodles through the gap. Ah, the time-honored celebration of a missing front tooth. It must be done.

As she drifted off to sleep with her tooth-fairy pillow swinging gently from her bed frame, I frantically searched for my stash of Sacagawea dollars. Coming up empty, I found a Susan B. Anthony, and decided that silver is an appropriate color for a missing fifth tooth. I slipped into her room, and made the exchange with as much stealth as I could manage. As I rounded the wall and headed for the door, I heard her voice call me back.

"Mommy?"

My heart was in my throat. Was I caught? Two days before Christmas, was I busted, and going to have a lot of creative explaining to do?

"Will you snuggle me?"

Whew. I laid down next to her, and closing my hand tightly over her purloined tooth, I wrapped my arms around her. Within minutes she was snoring, her mouth thrown open, hair slightly damp as she radiated heat. She's always been a hot sleeper. I sat at the edge of her bed, watching her sleep. She's so big now.

I made my way into my room, where I put her tooth in my jewelry box alongside my other keepsakes. It seems sort of gross to keep it, but I just have to. It's not very big, but it is a treasure to me. I find it hilarious to think that I may end up with a jewelry box full of baby teeth, given the three children and the years of tooth-losing ahead. What did the Victorians do with teeth? I know they made all sorts of macabre objects out of hair - surely they had a use for baby teeth.

The next morning, she was delighted with her silver dollar. She accepted my explanation of silver for the fifth tooth without question. I also got to launch into my patented "In my day, we only got a nickel" speech, which amused me greatly. She didn't get such a big kick out of it, and that's when it dawned on me that I've completely lost any cool I might have possessed. What's next? Fictional accounts of walking to school uphill for ten miles in the snow?

I thought I'd at least make it to fifty before launching into harrowing, if completely false tales of my childhood on the prairies, missing shoes and chopping wood and nickels from the tooth-fairy and all. Judging from the stoic reaction of my six-year-old, the only one who will react to these tales of youthful woe will be my mother, who will call me on my baloney, and add her own tales of youthful woe to trump my (false) stories.

So that's it. I've completely lost it. I'm looking at a future spinning wild yarns about a false childhood, and a jewelry box full of baby teeth.