when my daughter’s teeth came in they were perfect little white chiclets with lots of small gaps between them. her smile was ridiculous, exuberant and huge. she seemed to understand the power of bestowing her grin on random strangers and reveled in the big, positive reactions she received. she was not shy.

when she was about two, a dear family friend gave her older brother a joke box. it contained a plastic poop, a hand buzzer, a ring that squirted water, a bloody finger, a fake vomit and some wonky teeth. my son was most interested in the ring and the hand buzzer so lucy co-opted the “womit” and the “teef.” she found it hilarious to leave the “womit” in various corners so that guests would be surprised at dinner parties. but she REALLY loved the “teef.” she kept them with her at all times… carefully packing them into her back pack for pre school and leaving them on her bedside table at night, just like dentures. she would throw them on as soon as she got up and toddle around with a big, rickety grin. she was never without her teeth. by the time we were leaving for california that summer, she had perfected her timing. while waiting for our flight at DIA, she would sidle up to some unsuspecting traveler with her mouth firmly shut and wait for them to notice her. then she would flash them her mouthful of rotten teeth and laugh uproariously at their shocked reaction.

the following fall, lu bonked her (real) front teeth on the side of the bathtub when excitedly playing with the bubbles (she has never been a particularly careful girl.) after watching them for a few months, the dentist determined that the root of one of them had been compromised and needed to be pulled. she was only three. i was devastated as i loved those chiclets and her giant smile. i asked the dentist if he could at least give her a little gold one (possibly with a small diamond for some bling), but he said she was too young and might end up swallowing it. my first husband photoshopped a picture of her with her tooth blacked out so we could get used to how she would look. lucy herself was not flapped. she was actually excited to lose a tooth… she had seen the spoils her brother got from the tooth fairy and thought the whole deal was fantastic. the procedure went quickly and smoothly and while i would have liked to have a cocktail afterward, lu wanted me to drive her around to all of her friends’ houses so she could show off her new smile. because her teeth already had so much space between them, it appeared that she was missing MANY teeth.

(i would never encourage her to get a face tattoo or grow a soul patch, but the gold tooth is pretty cute!)

(the photoshopped picture to prepare us…)

(how she actually looked.)

her enthusiasm was hard to resist and i quickly fell in love with her toothless look too. for many years, she was the only one her age missing a tooth which prompted lots of conversations. of course, lucy loved telling the story. in second grade, the other teeth started coming out (naturally) too. at one point, she had no fronts on the top or the bottom… her mouth was like a dark cave. i had to be careful about what i fed her because she literally couldn’t bite into things. she gummed and gummed at one poor hotdog, leaving it deeply dented but still intact before i realized i needed to slice it up.

(partial cave…)

i then began to dread her grown ups coming in (i’m never one to rest easy.) i was so delighted with her unique, gapey grin and worried that she would just look normal when her permanent teeth arrived. but we will always have the wonkies. she now has a fairly sizable collection with a variety of dental disfigurations. she keeps them stashed all over the house and in my car so she can don them whenever the mood strikes (she wore them to soccer practice a few weeks ago.) her appreciation for them has not wavered… for five years running when she has to pick six super special items that “represent” her for sharing at school, the “teef” make the list.

(part of the “teef” collection.)

* i really embraced the tooth situation her kindergarten year… i dressed as lucy for halloween and blacked out my front tooth!