A toothy lesson in caution

Last week both families were at the house along with their parents.

We had been to the funeral home for a visitation and when we came back home, the noise level and excitement picked up. I walked into the living room to find the 5-year- old granddaughter chasing her five year old cousin around the table in the living room. It was apparently some sort of tag game but the space was pretty congested with family. My response was "Hey, hey, quit the running." That was about as effective as spitting into a strong south wind. That was followed up by my youngest son's admonition "Hey you two! Quit the running! Somebody's going to crash and burn!"

If he lived in biblical times, he would be called a prophet because less than 10 seconds later, the two of them went careening down the hall and the grandson in front stopped and the granddaughter ran over him from behind.

Unfortunately the first point of contact was her teeth running into the back of his head. Suddenly the home was like an emergency room on a Saturday night as the granddaughter's two front teeth were hanging by the roots having been bent back in her mouth and in a space of a few seconds we had gone from playing chase to lots of wailing and efforts to comfort.

Her cousin, who also lost her front teeth at the age of 5 tried to console her by saying, "It took three years for my permanent teeth to come in."

Another cousin tried to help her by saying "When you chew sunflower seeds you can spit them through the hole in your teeth!" The next day the dentist removed the teeth for good.

I hope the "tooth fairy" was good to her because she deserves a break.