It all starts with a "wiggly tooth" ... the next thing you know, one Sunday night, mom is flossing and snags it. Eeek! Many apologies abound but lo and behold that pesky super wiggly top tooth is now missing! How exciting! Why does the missing front teeth make kids look so much older?

We pack up the tooth in the Tooth Fairy Pillow and the Tooth Fairy leaves a dollar coin in her pillow. Lucky girl.

Then she wakes up the Monday morning and loses the OTHER front tooth. Now she really looks like a big girl. She was a little worried that the other kids would tease her, but we talked about how she is one of the older kids in her class. They look to her for how they should feel. Is it exciting? Tell them! Is it also a little scary? Tell them that too... She was so happy to show her class her new smile.

Okay, now it's getting a little out of hand! Today, she lost two more bottom teeth! Super exciting, except I think the tooth-fairy is running low on dollar coins... she may have to ask a neighbor tonight or depending on how long her cocktail hour goes this glorious summer Friday evening, hang it, she may just slip a Fiver in the pillow and call it a night. So, I give you - Pants' new smile:

I want to drivel on here about why do they grow up so fast? When did we become grownups? What's with my baby cousin already graduating from high school? What's with the kids I babysat for getting married & already having children of their own? But I'll spare you that....

Instead I'll dwell on how sweet this time with Pants is. How I LOVE to hear her read to me with that sweet innocent little lisp of having no front teeth ... I can't wait to hear how it sounds tonight. It's so cute to hear her read anyway- she is SO excited about all of it. She reads really loudly and with VIGOR, making sure to hit all the questions with an up-lilt to her voice and sentences with exclaimation points are read "excitedly!" She smells like bubble bath and hair conditioner, her long legs are cozied against mine and her head is tucked into my shoulder as we cuddle on her bed to read. It's my most favorite time of the night. I can't help but feel sometimes like I did when she was 18 months old and I would rock her and feed her a bottle and wonder, "Is this the last time she's going to want her bottle and rock with me?" My step-sister pointed out that for those of us with just one child, it's both the FIRST (exciting) and LAST (bittersweet) time we'll experience these milestones.