I remember, about 6 years ago, the twins started crawling. They had a whole world literally at their fingertips and the entertainment possibilities were endless. For small moments of their day, as they fearlessly roamed our apartment, Mommy was off the hook. I felt all those things that moms feel whenever their kids reach new stages in development: Overwhelming joy at this new tiny bit of increased free time, pride in my brilliant “grown up” kids, fear that they’ll get in over their heads, sadness at the loss of baby-ness… It’s in that place in between elation and sadness where a mother’s love radiates from within her.
This is where I find myself again. I’m amazed that my girls can even eat things like raw carrots because they only have a few resilient baby teeth determinedly clinging to their mouth. On the plus side, flossing their teeth at night has gotten a lot easier!
In the “Losing Teeth” Stage of Childhood
For the longest time, Madeline was the unique twin because SHE had lost her 2 front teeth at the early age of 4. She had knocked them out while attempting to use the linoleum as a dry slip ‘n slide. I’m sure she was thinking that she could ride her soft pillow and perfectly glide along the floor if she just got a big enough running start. With the pillow between Madeline and the linoleum, she had thrown herself down and attempted to sail across the kitchen floor on her belly. Sadly, the linoleum refused to play nice.
Madeline rolls with the punches pretty well. Her empty front gums made it so she could make funny faces that her siblings couldn’t, due to them still having all their teeth. In the end, not having front teeth turned out to be pretty cool.
Since that fateful event, both girls lost several more teeth at a natural progression. Madeline is in the lead and I think she’s up to SEVEN. Emily has nearly caught up to her toothless twin, and now they both have adorably gummy little-kid grins.
This week Emily lost another tooth. We celebrated with a trip to Dollar Tree to spend the $1 bill left by the Tooth Fairy. Be sure and follow our Instagram stories for our adventures in extravagant spending and fast-lane-living.
Independence is in Our Reach!
These 3 ragamuffins have been so busy giggling and tearing my apartment to shreds (thank you, summer vacation) that I almost missed a few more milestones. I am happy to announce that, every day, I have gained precious seconds of free time, thanks to my kids now being able to
-dress themselves, although Johnny’s shirt is usually backwards.
-put on their own shoes. We’re in full flip flop mode because, summer. Still working on learning to tie those pesky laces. I welcome any and all shoe-tying tips.
-open their snack packaging. If Johnny can’t get his string cheese open, his sisters step up. Thank goodness for older siblings!
They can also get toothpaste onto their own toothbrushes with minimal gobs of sticky blue paste on the floor. They scale the kitchen cupboards and help themselves to cups, crackers, and basically everything they ever dreamed of. Learning how to get onto the counter is much like learning to crawl. Mobility level: expert.
What to do with All that “Me Time”?
That’s really what it’s all about, my friends. Let’s be honest. We birth children, we love them dearly, but deep down we’re yearning for some alone time. If you scrape together all those seconds of free time I’ve recently acquired, they add up to one gloriously kid-free trip to the bathroom. From which I will likely emerge only to find that my darling 4- and 6-year-olds have consumed an entire bag of grapes in under 2 minutes and there is a suspiciously toothless bite mark in the butter.
After the baby years, it doesn’t really get easier. It just gets different.