Wrestling for a tooth

By Christian Price, News9.com INsite Team

On my days off, something special happened at my house. My boy, Xavier, lost his first tooth. The way he lost it was just about as weird as all of us in the family.

His tooth had been loose for a while. He would always wiggle it with his tongue and proudly show off how loose it was, but he wouldn't let me or his mom close enough to pull it. He was deathly afraid of the pain a pulled tooth would bring. He swore up and down that if we pulled it, he would bleed to death. Every time my wife or I would walk passed him, he would instantly shut his mouth.

 As a snack, we gave Xavier an apple. The apple didn't yield the tooth, but it did get some skin in between a couple of his teeth. When his mom tried to locate the skin, she screamed out for me. I instantly thought, "Great, he bit her. I guess we're going to the emergency room."

 When I rounded the corner, my wife was standing in front of my boy. She was holding his mouth open like a baby bird crying to be fed, and Xavier was drooling down his shirt. My wife's reaction had my son asking, "What? Tell me. What's wrong? Am I dying?"

 I tried calming the boy down by saying, "No, you're not dying. You're finally morphing into you're alien body." He was instantly quiet.

Mom broke the silence by telling me, "Look behind his loose tooth. His new tooth is already in, but it's behind his loose tooth."

"And," I asked.

My wife proceeded to tell me that I needed to fish out the loose tooth before the new one comes in crooked.

As some as my wife uttered her words, my boy was instantly gone. I have never seen my husky June bug (Xavier's nick name) move so fast. I didn't think he could hustle like that.

As my boy franticly ran circles in my house trying to locate a way out, I calmly washed my hands and gathered several paper towels. I then got a warm cup of tap water and mixed in some salt. I gathered everything and stepped inside our bathroom without turning on the light. The bathroom in our house is located in the house's main hallway.

I waited inside the darkened bathroom staring into the hall as a hunter stalks its prey.

By this time, my son who is still running, is huffing and puffing as if he's been running all day long. His gasping for breath allowed me to know where exactly he was within the house at any given moment. It was a matter of moments by the time I heard my son walking up the hallway.

As soon as he stepped into view of the door frame, I jumped out at him and screamed, "Hey!" My boy jumped up and screamed. I instantly grabbed him and threw him on our bed in our bedroom. I used my legs and arms to wrap him up and I started to tickle him. He was trying so hard not to laugh, but he couldn't fight it.

While the boy and I were wrestling on the bed, my wife looked in his mouth and saw that the tooth itself was now barely hanging on by a tiny piece skin.

Seizing the opportunity, my wife reached in and slowly picked the tooth out of his mouth as if she was picking a berry. The new tooth was so far in; his mouth didn't even bleed when the old tooth came out.

Once it was all said and done, my boy realized that losing a tooth isn't anything to freak out about. I hope he remembers it the next time he loses a tooth. I don't want to have to wrestle him again. That 6-year-old kid almost pinned me. How would I explain that to people?