On Thursday night Ash discovered that if he wiggled and jostled his front tooth enough I would visibly shudder, so he spent every moment he could before bedtime sending me into fits of agony. He especially loved to twist it so hard that I could hear the crunch in his mouth, and I would scream out loud, completely grossed out.

I put him to bed and went upstairs to watch football. An hour and a half later I heard his feet pounding as he raced through the house and up to the loft, yelling, “Mom! It’s out!” I saw his tousled brown hair first, then a blood smeared face and hands, and then a grin as wide as the sky with two missing front teeth. (That boy is determined if nothing else. He spent an HOUR AND A HALF in his bed working on that tooth!) Fortunately, Brian took care of the mess and the boy and tucked him back in bed with a promise that we would leave a note for the tooth fairy to leave his tooth under his pillow so he could take it to show and tell the next day. Show and tell? Who wants to see someone’s tooth at show and tell?

It is moments like these that I question if I am truly cut out to mother boys.

But then I see this face:

And I am again fascinated by the way he can completely gross me out one second and the next he can utterly melt my heart.