A rite of passage

My little boy is growing up.

This morning Noah asked to brush his teeth. He does this fairly often, but I told him he could do it after I brushed his teeth as it had not been done by an adult in a while. So I started brushing his teeth when I noticed the gums around one of his bottom middle teeth looked kinda red. Then I realized that the tooth was very loose. Trying to sound calm but failing miserably, I asked Noah if he had hit his tooth. He said no. I asked him if it hurt and he said yes, but it wasn't a very believable yes. So I touched one of his other teeth (a canine, I think) and asked if this tooth hurt. He answered in the affirmative, and then I did another. This told me that they did not hurt because usually if something really hurts him he doesn't want us anywhere near it.

So I got online to investigate when children are supposed to start losing their baby teeth. He is 4 years and 10 months old, so almost 5, which is kinda early to be losing teeth. Though not unheard of. (The average age is 6-7 years old.) He got his first teeth (one of the ones that was loose) very early, right after he turned 3 months old. I remember being extremely surprised when it came thru.

He seemed kinda upset about this tooth thing, probably picking up on my anxiety. But then we told him that when it came out, we would give him a dollar for it and take him to a store where he could pick something out to buy w/ his dollar. He cheered up considerably and started practicing wiggling the tooth w/ his tongue.

This evening around 5:30pm he pulled the tooth out w/ his fingers. I inspected it and the gums and they both look perfectly healthy, no decay or trauma is evident. So I guess it's just his time to start losing them.

I feel so old.

Before:


After (according to Noah, Snoopy lost a "sharp pointy tooth" today):