Muffin is growing up fast. He's shot up so quickly in the last few months that he's become gangly and clumsy. He's also started losing his milk teeth.
The first tooth he lost was at the gym. He left it on the bench but he couldn't find it after.
Tonight, he dropped his second tooth. We have been telling him, the last few days, to not swallow his tooth so that we could stick it under his pillow like the Jordan and Evan did.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. The tooth found the most inopportune time to fall out; as Muffin was rinsing his mouth after brushing his teeth. So it swirled in the sink and went down the drain pipe before anyone could react.
Evan tried. He tried to cover the hole in the sink. But the tooth slipped right through his fingers.
Muffin howled. It wasn't one tooth he was mourning. It was two. And he cried so pitifully, his usually combative brother came running to get us.
No amount of carrying and consoling soothed his distress.
Right till Evan offered him one of his own milk teeth (that he knows I keep in a container), to lay under his pillow so that the tooth-fairy would come.
Even with that, it took him another 10 to 15 minutes of sobbing, gulping and hiccoughing before he picked a tooth, laid it in the box and slipped it under his pillow. And then he cried himself to sleep.
But at least there was recourse.
Evan, the brother who fights so bitterly with him sometimes, rose to the occasion, put aside his own grumpiness and showed kindness and compassion. He did ask me to return him his tooth once we were done with it. To which, I gladly acceded. After all, the tooth was his.
So not only did we leave a note and 2 $1 coins for Muffin, we told him in the note that his big brother helped to make it happen and that he had a wonderful big brother. So we were leaving an extra $1 that he was to give to his big brother for helping him feel better.
Sometimes, we don't give Evan enough credit. He's the oft-misunderstood, bullied, overshadowed middle brother. But he always, always rises to the occasion when it matters the most.
Like tonight, where he saved the day and was the tooth fairy through and through.
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