Four teeth down, only 16 to go!

Seriously, if the next 16 teeth take as much effort as this last one did to to convince Nikolaus (7 years old) to 'just pull it out!', I'm gonna scream!!!   He's already lost 3 teeth (bottom front two teeth, and one top front tooth).  And those all came out fairly easy on their own, minus the hystrionics.  But gosh...it was literally 'like pulling teeth' to get him to just rip this one out.  What gives??

It was loose for like a month, and for the past week it's literally been dangling by a thread.  Not hell or high water was that kid ready to part with this particular tooth for some reason.  He claimed that 'it huurrrtttsss' every time I tried to get in there and yank it out of his face.  It was seriously disgusting to watch him wiggle it around with his tongue.  For a while it was lodged at a 45 degree angle coming out of his gums.  Then it was at a 90 degree angle back into his mouth.  FINALLY, yesterday, as he was wiggling it around on it's thread, it popped off!  Alleluia!!  Here's the culprit:

And the toothless grin:

Now Alex, the younger and more adventurous one (who's 18 months his younger), barely let his first loose tooth even get a mere wiggle before yanking it out while brushing his teeth last week!  Maybe it was the joy and thrill of having the tooth fairy finally visit him for the first time.  Maybe he just wanted to 'one up' his brother and prove how brave he was, and what a wuss Nikolaus was in front of the other 3 kids who were sleeping at our house that night.  Or maybe he is just a money hungry 5 year old who wanted his first payoff from the tooth fairy.  Whatever the reason, out came the tooth, seriously just a few days after it started to wiggle.  He already had his adult tooth growing in behind the baby tooth, so I'm glad it came out so easily, to make room for the new tooth to move on in (we do NOT need any orthodontic bills in the teen years, please!)

The win goes to Alex this time ($5.00) vs. the $1.00 to Nikolaus.  First tooth out always get a bigger payout, right?  Although I'm not sure money is enough to get Nikolaus to pull anything out of his gums.  He told me he'd prefer to get an 'A to Z Mystery Book' instead of cash from the tooth fairy.  Gotta love a kid who loves to read!!!  Maybe the win actually goes to Nikolaus.  ;-)