Lost tooth #3

We lost a tooth his week!

And, as usual, it was not just an event, but a Happening!

The tooth has been lose for nearly a week, he has been telling me daily about it, showing me the great wiggliness periodically through out each day.  And every day he has asked me for a pair of tweezers...
"What do you need tweezers for, hon?"
"To grab my tooth. It needs to come out."
"Hmmm, I am not sure that is the best way to get it out."
(voice escalating, body tightening, meltdown starting) "But it HAS to come out!!!!"

So I would get a pair of tweezers and "try" to get a hold of it, but it didn't come out.

"Sweetheart, it will come out when it is ready.  If it still hurts when I pull it is not ready to come out yet. Just wait."

And he would (as long as I had tried to pull it).

The sensory piece of dealing with the lose tooth is clearly overwhelming, and this is our third!  He has not eaten as much this week, he has been chewing more this week - constantly with a ball of a drinking straw (our redirection of choice) moving around his mouth.  All the shirts this week have had a faint blood stain on the collar from chewing & pulling.  Clearly if he is asking daily, it is bothering him.  And, ultimately he did pretty well.  He really DID practice some patience (in context for him).

And sure enough, when I needed to take him to a friend for the day (while I worked), she suggested that he eat an apple (which is a damn good idea, I might add, and I feel rather like a dufus for not suggesting it myself), and within half an hour I get a text that the tooth was out.  He was, of course, prepared for this event since we had sent a snack sized ziploc bag in his pocket to bring it home in if it came out.  He put the bag in his back pack to come home, just like he should.  With all that angst, all went perfectly.

And you think the story ends there... (picture my smirk)

But, no, alas, in true Big Dragon Mama style, the story gets complicated from there...

I went to pick them up, and I riffled through the backpack, checking for all our belongings, while talking of course, so I halfway went through the list, we had our workbooks, and our chewing straws, and the toys we brought, so we left. 

We went to Kmart, because I still wanted to see about acquisitioning a prize from the tooth fairy.  Our tooth fairy refrains from money usually since the first tooth brought forward a strange truth.  When he lost his first tooth, I was apprehensive, because I had NOT front loaded thoroughly, I had NOT had (or taken) the time to talk about tooth fairy or no tooth fairy, or dentist or ANYTHING.  He just came home from school with a tooth in a bag.  Soooo, knowing there would be some Asperger's sensitivities here about procedure, I asked...
"I see you have lost your tooth.  What is supposed to happen to it?"
"Oh, you put it under your pillow.'
"Why would you do that?"
"That is where the Tooth Fairy finds it, Mom" (duh)
"Hmm, and then what? Does it stay there?"
"No, Mom!  She comes and gets it."
"And is that it?"
"No, Mom!  she leaves you money."
HERE COMES MY ERROR:
"Oh, how much money does she leave?"
"Fifteen dollars and fifteen cents."
MENTAL NOTE:  WTF!!!!!!!!! - I waited a few moments to catch my breath. How the HELL was I gonna get out of this?!  We all know that the level of detail is not to be argued with an Aspie - I would have to find $15.15 that night! Time for a NEW tactic...
"Umm, does she only leave money?"
"Oh no, sometimes she leaves prizes."
"Oh, that is nice." [THANK GOD]
So we went to Kmart to get a prize.  And I found a Lego moon rover on clearance, so I snuck it in (he was VERY distracted by the Star Wars sticker book).  I had told him he couldn't have Legos yet (til he learns to put away). So I hoped it would be cool and throw him off track. And we went home.

But when we got there and emptied the backpack, we did NOT find the tooth.  I called the sitter/ friend. Do you see it? No, I saw him put it in his pocket. I checked his pants, did it fall out in your couch?  No, I am checking the couch now, but I do not see it.  Has any of your family run across it today? No, we have not seen it.  Just leave him a note from the tooth fairy saying that if he finds it later mom will keep it as a souvenir.  Ok, we will do something.

I put the kids in the bath and went about tooth-fairy-ing.  I wrote a note with my left hand:
Dear Son,
I know you lost a tooth today, and that you cannot find it.  I will send my fairy helpers to go look for it, but here is a prize anyhow for all the hard work you did to lose that tooth. Good Job! Great Patience!
Love, The Tooth Fairy
I wrapped the note around the Legos and put it under the pillow - on his bed.

After the shower, he got in my bed.  I asked him what he was going to do about the tooth fairy.  He said he didn't know, so I suggested he write her a note.

AND HE DID!!!! Here's the AWESOME PART!!!: my fine-motor reluctant Aspie, who argues with me for half an hour to complete 7 words on a workbook page WROTE THE TOOTH FAIRY A NOTE!!!!!!  His sister gave him a Strawberry Shortcake pad and pen, and he commenced to wrote a note:
Dear T.F.
I lost my tooth.  Will you please look for it. Sincerely yours. F. M. T. Y.
He did write ON THE LINES and hyphenated when he ran out of room and had to go to the next line!! He did ask me to write "sincerely", and he told me FMTY means "from me, to you".  AND HE DREW A HEART AT THE END OF THE NOTE!!!!  

I am SOOOOOOOOOO PROUD!

He put the note in my bed. But, honey, this is not your bed, how will the tooth fairy find the note? She will look and see that I am over here. But honey, what if she thinks it's my tooth? She won't. I think you should try to put the note under the pillow in your bed [where I have already hidden the blagnabbit gift! Go find it!]  3 times he started for that room, for that bed, but he stopped himself every time and argued with me further that the note needed to be in my bed.  I got up to go to the bathroom and heard him in his room, heard something drop.  I come out of the bathroom to find the Lego and note separated and just laying in the hall.  He was so intent on not letting his note be under the pillow on that bed that he did not acknowledge what was under there, he just wanted it out.
"Honey, what is this paper? I don't want to slip on it"
"I don't know." reading... "it is a note, from the Tooth Fairy!"
"Well, what does it say?"
"I don't know. I can't read it" [remember the left hand writing?]
I read it out loud. He looks at the floor dazed.
"Did it actually have a prize with it?"
"Oh, yes! It is right here on the floor."
He picks it up, I take his precious note, put it on my shelf and sit with him.
"Where is my note?"
"From the Tooth Fairy?"
"No!, the one I wrote"
"Oh, I saved it."
"NO!, it HAS to be under a pillow"
So it went under my pillow.  And he opened his Very First Lego and put it together according to the directions. GREAT - more finger skills!

We went to bed.  He woke up the next morning and his sister asked to see his prize. He proudly showed his Lego, and re-read her the note. And said, "Yes, Fairy Helpers..."

This would be an excellent end to the story, but there is one corollary:
The friend/ sitter told me yesterday that she found the tooth, because he had come into her dream and paced the place in her house where it was and kept saying, "my tooth".  When she woke up it was exactly where he had showed her in the dream.  She calls it "dream walking".  I asked him much later in the evening if he had visited her in his sleep and helped her find the tooth [which she gave to me, but I did not tell him], and he said, "no, it was Fairy Helpers"...