Tooth on the Roof

The anticipation almost killed us.

Elias drove us crazy with the prodding and pushing and whining.
And I started to get worried.  Because that little tooth wiggled but it wouldn't come out.

After awhile, he developed a disturbing "shark tooth" issue (a name I thought I cleverly invented to describe the fact that his adult tooth was growing in behind his baby tooth, but turns out to be something dentists say all the time).

Prodding.

Pushing.

Whining.

You see, I was convinced he was going to turn out just like me.

Only one of my baby teeth simply fell out on it's own.  I remember when it happened.  I was six and we were watching Marty Stauffer's Wild America.  After that, my teeth refused to fall out and I had to go to the dentist every couple of months and have a few pulled.  It's a real testament to the extreme kindness of my childhood dentist that I still really love him and even take my own kids to him each summer for a check.

I got overly anxious with motherly transference and considered yanking it out.  Mama Vida caught me wiggling it a little too vigorously one day and said, "Mama!  Leave the tooth alone!  It will come out when it's ready."  Wise woman.

Thankfully, one evening last week, it fell out.  Just like that.

Moments after.

One tooth down, we had to figure out what the proper arrangements were for a baby tooth in this part of the world.  Elias told me we needed to throw it on the roof.  Seriously?

He was remembering a skit his kindergarten class did last year about baby tooth traditions around the world...and turns out, he was right.  I double checked with Mama NouNou, who told me that yes, of course he should throw the tooth on the roof, but he needed to tie it to a pieces of coal first.  I initially thought this to be absolutely bizarre, but then reminded myself that if we were in Virginia, Elias would be placing the kinda-nasty little tooth under his pillow to wait for a fairy to take it away in the night, leaving a treasure behind.  Yeah.

The only problem was that Elias, being a good American, still wanted his treasure.

We decided to meld traditions and figured that, in Kinshasa, the tooth fairy would find the coal-wrapped tooth more easily on the roof, whereupon s/he would magically place a treasure under the pillow.  Naturally.

Placement.

I mean, how would you tie a tooth to a piece of coal?

The toss!

Later, Sarah found a great book to back up this whole ritual.  Except, she informed me, (days after the fact), that because the tooth was a bottom tooth, we should have buried it.  You only throw top teeth on the roof.

Dang it.

Elias lost his second tooth today.  I'm trying to convince him to bury this one, but he's not buying it.  He got 2,000 FC out of the last tooth and so he's playing it safe and sticking with the most logical route to success: throw the tooth on the roof!

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