In Which Teeth Come Up Twice
In November of last year, a couple of weeks before her sixth birthday, my daughter lost her first tooth.
She came home from school, giggling through a tight-lipped smile before saying “hey Mom, guess what?” and opening her mouth wide, jutting her bottom row of teeth forward so I could see. Her little baby tooth was in a plastic baggie in her folder, placed there by her teacher with a note that said “Sophie lost a tooth today!”
Later that night, after the kids were in bed, I threw on a jacket and headed to Target by myself in search of confetti and change for a twenty dollar bill. It was so dark out at only 7:30 PM—with little kids we so rarely find ourselves out of the house after their bedtime, and as silly as it sounds I was shocked to see the parking lot so crowded. There were several sets of young parents with newborns in car seats, and I so clearly recalled also being at Target with a brand new baby, fully engulfed in the newborn haze, having just finished a peppermint milkshake from the Chick-Fil-A down the street.
It was surreal to walk through the aisles of the store–alone, well-rested, fully aware of the time and day–buying tooth fairy supplies for a kindergartner who was sleeping soundly in her big girl bed back at home. It was the first time I really took a moment to feel the alone time I get in this season, with a six and now almost-three-year old. When they are tiny babies it feels like every night that they don’t sleep is the way life will be for you forever. Rocking a newborn in the middle of the night or nursing a teething baby, the time you might have slipped out of the house for a post-dinner Target run feels like a lifetime away.
And I know that this “two little big kids” time won’t last, either.
Last week I got a root canal on a Tuesday and a tattoo on Wednesday. I can’t say I recommend the pacing of those two events but it really did give me some gratitude for the way most of us usually get to go through life in a relatively neutral state of not being poked by needles. My family met me for dinner after the tattoo and I realized that my anxiety often causes me to forget how lucky I am. I don’t mean it in a toxic positivity “be grateful no matter what” kind of way, but the reminder that I have access to good health care as well as the flexibility and budget to spend four hours and $500 on something just for me was profound as I dove into a spicy chicken sandwich, my arm sheathed in saran wrap.
I don’t have to get a root canal–I get to have a root canal. Or something.
Am I supposed to be on Substack? Are we blogging still? Are people reading this shit? I look back at my time as a full-time blogger/“influencer” and cringe just a tiny bit, but there are a lot of things I have written on the Internet that I am very proud of. I have more things I want to write but the actual follow-through isn’t there anymore and in the rare cases that I do sit down at my computer to try to put something into words I find myself like “what was I getting at and how long does it take to slow-roast a piece of salmon?” I’m sure I will look back one day at this time when I could barely finish a thought and laugh, my heart twinging slightly that I don’t have to pack little kid lunches anymore.
But until then I really do wonder about Substack. Someone LMK.