If she doesn't than I guess she won't be getting the tooth my son pulled out after school today! I HAD NO IDEA HE EVEN HAD A LOOSE TOOTH. I brush his teeth everyday! Granted he always has his tongue near the toothbrush (defensive moves) so I can't see very well where he lost the tooth.
He came home after school and looked at me with distress the minute I got him in the door. I asked him what was wrong and he pointed to the trunk/end table next to our couch. He wanted a tissue. I gave it to him and he put it in his mouth. I knew that meant he had a loose tooth. He doesn't like getting the blood on him when he is yanking on a loose tooth and likes to put the tissue over the tooth to avoid messes, God bless him. So then he hands me the tissue and looks at me like he wants me to get the tooth out because it is bugging him. I don't pull teeth. No way. Neither does my husband. Luckily, when Stephen was little his teeth eventually fell out or he pulled them out.
He had a real urgency with getting this one out though. It could be due to the fact that 3 out of the last 4 loose teeth he has had, had to be pulled (crowns on the baby teeth made them stick to the gum and one tooth actually had one long root still attached, blech!!). This one had a crown also. And I was not really shocked to see that the new tooth was already about 1/4 out of the gum under the old tooth. That was the case with all the other ones that had to be pulled. I think he figured he'd rather do it himself than get it pulled.
His lovely collection of crowned teeth are the direct result of the pounds of candy reinforcers he was given in ABA over the couple of years at 2 different points in his life that he had it and not allowing us to brush his teeth when he was little due to sensory issues with his mouth. I believe he only has one crown left to loose thank God! I never want to have to take him to the dentist again to have a stubborn tooth pulled.
So I took him upstairs and put Anbesol on it after a lot of coaxing and reassurance that it would make him feel better and not hurt him. He kept pulling it and there was blood. I showed him how to take water into his mouth and spit it out. This is a big milestone! He spits out toothpaste when I tell him too, but we haven't tried swishing or even just taking water into his mouth and spitting it out. He really liked doing this. And he kept pulling and rinsing and spitting out the blood. I tried to use his electric toothbrush to loosen the skin on the outside gum. He let me go over it a couple times. He was determined to get it out and I gave him some paper towel to just absorb the blood but he kept trying to pull it out. There was nothing more I could do. He was going to keep trying to pull it out and he seemed to have control over the blood. So I took him to his room and told Olivia to check on him while I finished watching "Schindler's List". I have been wanting to see it since it came out. It was soooo long and I thought I'd be able to finish before the kids got home and it was so close to the end that I had to finish watching it.
I went downstairs and about five minutes later heard him coughing. I thought oh God he is puking from the blood in his mouth. I ran upstairs and he was just standing there poking the spot with his tongue. I looked in his mouth and the darn thing was gone. WHERE WAS THE TOOTH!? I looked everywhere in his room and couldn't find it. DARN IT! No Tooth Fairy. I think he swallowed it. When all his teeth were pulled they wouldn't let us keep them. In the past he has swallowed, lost or done something with his pulled out teeth. He made a Tooth Fairy pillow in class last year and we have only been able to do use it once : ( But at least the tooth is out without a trip to the dentist and he is happy!
6 comments:
I'm pretty sure the Tooth Fairy still comes even if you swallow the tooth! :) That boy deserves double pay for all of that trouble!
The tooth brushing issues sound very familiar!
Unfortunately, if he doesn't see me put the tooth in the pillow and tell him that the tooth fairy will take it and leave him something and then in the morning show him the tooth is missing and has left him a present he won't understand what happened. I think the relief from the pain was its own reward! Thank God he can do the pullin' cause I can't do it! He has been going through such a huge spurt of progress over the past week. I'm so proud!
With all the trauma he has had with his teeth from decay due to the candy reinforcers and not letting us brush his teeth and then all the dental work and teeth pulling, it's amazing he let's me near his teeth! Thank God he lets me brush them. He still won't sit through a cleaning at the dentist. That's why I bought him an electric toothbrush. I was so impressed by it's cleaning power, I bought myself one!
LOL! Yes the tooth fairy does come if you swallow the tooth ;) Gosh he really worked hard on that one!
Two of my kids will pull their own teeth and the other will not eat anything hard for weeks or months trying to keep her teeth from falling out (and never, ever eat corn because it is shaped like a tooth!).
It does make sense that he needs to see concrete proof of the tooth on the pillow to understand why he got the present. Perhaps you can draw a picture of a tooth and put that on the pillow?
Domenick has swallowed, we believe, the last 3 teeth that he has lost. It is usually while eating dinner, but he won't notice it is gone until he is later brushing his teeth. Luckily, for us, he has NO interest in the tooth fairy!!!!
I'm just going to take him out and get him another, yes ANOTHER, book this weekend. I have bought him 4 used mother goose or nursery rhyme books off ebay in the past week. Everytime he brings home another catalog and points one out I buy him one. I wouldn't normally spoil either kid this much but he has never been so passionate about collecting anything before and he is sharing his interest with us and I want him to feel like we are trying to understand and meet his needs. We have always bought my daughter more things only because she has so many interests that she is able to communicate. He is so limited in what he likes and we guess half the time when we buy things we think he'll like. He doesn't pick out much when we take him to the store so this is very exciting!!
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