Baby teeth
the note left under the pillow
On Thursday, Thomas lost the last two of his baby teeth, in one day.
Wow– big day for you! I said when he showed me the last of his babyhood in his hand.
Does one have a party to mark this? I haven’t seen any cards in CVS. I’m sure Rudolf Steiner had something to say about it. I’m just trying to figure out how much the tooth fairy leaves for the last time ever.
But the winds of change have been breezing through my house for months now.
There is Axe shampoo in our shower (“Get girl approved hair” it says on the bottle). Showers are being taken without reminding. He tries to explain to me these inside jokes he has with his friends (some of them are pretty saucy). He leaves for school looking quite. . . nice.
Who is she??!!, I ask him, mock accusation.
Sometimes he’ll tell me. Sometimes he won’t. He broke it to me recently that he would like more privacy. Ummmmm . . . okay. I can do that. I remember the day I kicked my mom out of the bathroom. I was hysterical, I even think I started crying from outrage and embarrassment. Eve, post juicy apple bite.
Has me thinking today (with a wee lump in my throat), of the line in Stanley Kunitz’s poem “The Layers”:
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
Yes, Stanley. . . how?
thomas, age 4, with all his baby teeth
