Much ado about...

Ro lost his first upper front tooth today. An event of utmost importance in his life. Dislodging the front upper tooth has been his pet project for the last 2 months and he has not left any stone unturned to meet his objective. He had even braved a visit to the dentist along with my father. But the tooth remained ‘unmoved’. The apparent trigger has been his ‘peers’ in school who have all lost their ‘uppers’. In the 6-years-old circle, a missing ‘upper’ is a writ of passage to be considered ‘arrived’.

Every morning for the last one month he would religiously asked me to ‘test’ his now slightly wobbly tooth and predict the date by which the tooth would ‘fall off’. Thus ensued serious calculations for forecast, which would dominate our morning teatime. In jest, I had told him 1st May. And in his innocence he had believed.

Today, over breakfast the much-revered tooth comes off the ‘hook’ and unceremoniously falls on the dish filled with his half-eaten tuna sandwich with a ‘plonk’! All conversations stop. Eyes rivet on the blessed tooth. Split second. My mother rushes to help him wash off the blood that followed the ‘plonk’. My father, being the practical person that he is, wonders how he will eat the rest of the breakfast now that he has a gaping hole for a mouth. Ro of course is overjoyed and wants to call all his friends with the breaking news. In between his gushing he looks at me with wide-eyed amazement and says “Mommy, today is 1st May!”

In the middle of a rushed morning, I got myself a believer.