How did it all happen so fast?! It was towards the end of July when I was surprised to see my 6 year old son’s first two lower incisors peeking behind his still standing baby teeth. I am not sure what made me think of checking. We were then killing time while waiting for my turn to have my wires adjusted. I remember checking just a few weeks back and there was nothing yet.
For fear of sounding overly dramatic, I have stalled on blogging about it. But then again, I was reminded that it was because of my desire to journal these milestones that I decided to start blogging in 2004, to begin with. Hence, blogging away, I am. I can’t help but second guess myself if I was normal or not. Because it did feel like it was just nothing for my husband, when I broke the news to him. He was then with us. His reaction was just plain, “Oh!” As opposed to my being almost jumpy during that time. Thrilled but at the same time a little sad. Not the bad kind of sad. It is, for one, some sort of coming of age moment for our son. Typing through this entry alone takes on a melodramatic mode. It all seems like yesterday when I was a struggling young mother and now my son is slowly moving away from my apron strings.
Every milestone is a step closer to cutting that apron string. I was reading about Hannah the other day(1 Samuel Chapter 1). It can be nothing less than faith that made her give Samuel to Eli’s care at such a young age! It was her vow to God and she kept her commitment. This is also why I’m giving my all in making sure my son grows up in the fear of the Lord. It is the vow I first made when I found out that we were pregnant with Jed. But that’s another blog entry altogether. 😉
Going back to this developmental dental milestone, we were told by my son’s first dentist that the first permanent tooth is usually one of the molars. It usually appears when children are 6 years old. I just saw now that there are two or three molars already erupting inside my son’s mouth.
When I saw the first lower incisors behind my son’s baby teeth, I knew the baby teeth had to be taken out. Otherwise he might end up having crooked (sungki) teeth. There was no delaying to make way to condition my son’s mind to go about the procedure. I’m proud how my son did not fuss at all. I just had to explain to him that the teeth need to be extracted to make way for his new teeth. He was a little scared but he breezed through it and impressed Doc Pinky while he was at it. She said that it was uncommon for a six year old to not fuss during his first extraction.
photo taken the day after extraction. Doc Pinky advised our son to push the teeth with his tongue to properly position them with the rest of his teeth.
Doc Pinky’s assistant surprised him with a cup of ice cream after. It took Doc Pinky a while longer to extract the other tooth (the longer one on the first photo above). The first was a little weak already (ready to be pulled out), while the other was still pretty tough. Good thing that despite the dentist’s warning, after the anaesthesia wore off, my boy did not complain of any pain. We also got our brave little lad an extra Angry Birds stuffed toy to add to his collection. ‘Tis the bittersweet moments of parenting. I know there are a whole lot more coming. Bracing myself and choosing to savor every moment of it. 🙂
