I hadn't even realised he had lost another tooth - bad mummy.
My middle son O, found it on the floor by my late Grandfathers old leather arm chair.
As J was not back from school, we did do a check on the dogs, but I knew it couldn't be from them as it was a small tooth and looked human.
When J returned, I asked him to show me his teeth, and he duly obliged. I shone a torch in his mouth, and yes, there was a small gap, with a new tooth already well on its way up.
It is the first of the canines, and I had only checked a few weeks before, for the age of when children begin to lose those ones.
As with most things in J's life, he went through trauma during the first two baby teeth loss. He let out blood curdling screams and had the panicked panting and shock, when he was losing his first tooth.
He refused to eat with the tooth during that time, and he delayed its exit for quite a while.
Finally the first tooth, and the second tooth were lost only a few days later, and occurred at school, during assembly. Again he became highly distressed, and was removed by a support staff, to help calm him. His eagle eyed teacher spotted a tooth on the floor by his chair, and quickly assessed it was from J, and that was the reason for his outburst.
There is an old blog post here, from December 2010, where he had lost his seventh tooth.
Since then, he has lost all of his eight front teeth, four top and four bottom, and he never made any fuss, never became distressed, and never even attempted to show me.
This tooth is the first I have managed to keep. All the other teeth, he either threw away - apart from the assembly ones - or flushed them down the toilet. I would only be aware that another tooth had fallen out, when I saw the gap.
He has amazingly strong teeth, white, and totally free from any decay. I look upon that as a blessing, as it would be horrendous trying to get him to sit still for an injection in his gum, let alone actually sit in a dentists chair, lie back, and open his mouth. So far, he has progressed to allowing the dentist to shine her light into his mouth, use the little mirror, and paste on some fluoride gel. This alone has taken two years to build up to, and he still won't sit in the chair ; the dentist goes with the flow and his needs, and lets him stand by the door, a hand on the handle, ready to leave as quick as possible!
We are lucky that his dentist has a lot of autistic children on her books, and her manner and approach is exactly what J needs.
I can now be on extra alert for the next canine to become wobbly, and maybe I will actually be there to catch it. Maybe, but probably not!
J's canine tooth that was found on the floor
