LOSS OF FIRST BABY TOOTH

LOSS OF FIRST BABY TOOTH

By Mrs. Jerry (Connie) LaGrow

Rt. #1 Box 61

Cherokee, Oklahoma 73728

First Place at State 2003

Isn’t it odd about some of the things that we remember as a child growing up?  Is

it because of the drama of it or because we tell it over and over and it becomes ingrained

in our minds?  Well, one story that I have not only shared with our five grandsons and

their parents but also with the eight preschool classes that I taught in my home.  It is

about the loss of my first tooth.

I was the oldest of three children, of Don and Lucile Shaklee, it seems that I was

always experiencing some aspect of growing up first and then, I tried to help my younger

brother and sister through those difficult times.  My parents and we three kids lived on

160 acres of sandy and rocky land that my Dad rented on the correction line south and

west of Jet, Oklahoma.  It was on a windy hill just ½ mile south of the Timberlake

Cemetery and on a clear day we could see Jet, Helena, Cherokee, and Goltry,

We were on the very south edge of the Jet school district and my parents had to

pay tuition two years to avoid me having to attend a one room school house 2 ½ miles

from our home.  My parents would have had to take and pick me up each day and I would

have probably been the only first grade student at the school.  The country school was

only in operation three more years after I started to school.  But instead my parents chose

to drive me 1 mile to the Timberlake rural church  to catch the school bus to attend school

in Jet believing that I would get a better education and be with more children my own

age.

I was in first grade and my teacher was Mrs. Sylvia VanOsdol.  Usually mother

was home when I got home from school and would pick me up, at the corner, we called it. 

But this particular day I had to walk home, the one mile.  There was a boy, four years

older than I, lived down the road from our house to the north 1/4 of a mile, and so, we

walked home together.  

When I got home, I was hungry and found an apple to eat.  I don’t recall even

noticing my tooth was loose but it must have been because when I bit down on the apple

to take a bite my tooth in front came out.  My mother was a real disciplinarian; so seeing

that I was now shy a tooth in front and didn’t know that they were only baby teeth and

that more teeth would grow back in their place, I figured I was in BIG TROUBLE!  

So I figured the best bet would be to bury the evidence and keep my mouth shut

the rest of my life.  So I took the tooth out the front door and down the two steps and dug

a hole in the ground in the corner by the steps and buried my first lost tooth.

Mother came home soon and started to try to get a conversation out of me as to

how school had gone that day but I wouldn’t answer her and would only shake my head

up or down.  Well, this was not satisfactory because my mother wanted to know what I

had in my mouth that I wouldn’t talk to her.   She took my face in her hands and

demanded that I open my MOUTH!   Well, I was crying by now big time because I knew

I was in trouble for losing my tooth by eating an apple.  But all Mother said was, “Why,

Connie you have lost your first baby tooth!”   She wasn’t mad at all!  She was almost

laughing!  Then she said, “What did you do with the tooth?  We will have to put it under

your pillow tonight when you go to bed and then the tooth fairy will bring you a nickel or

a dime.”  (Times were hard then for my folks.)  

Then I really did CRY!  Mother told me it was okay and to go and get my tooth

but I said, “But Momma, I buried my tooth!”   “But where?” asked Momma.  “Outside in

the dirt,” was my answer!  

Well, by this time it was beginning to get dark so Momma and I took a flashlight

outside and we dug and dug in the spot where I buried my tooth but we couldn’t find it. 

But Momma assured me that the tooth fairy would understand and would probably still

stop by our house that night.  You know she was right!   The tooth fairy did stop and left a

quarter under my pillow.  She must have felt really sorry for me that I didn’t know that if

I kept my tooth she would exchange it during the night for a nickel or dime.

Well, the loss of the first tooth has been quite dramatic for even my kids, because

Penny, our daughter,  had a plastic hanger in her mouth and when she took it out of her

mouth the hanger hook caught on it and yanked it out and Jeffery, our son,  let two older

boys put a string around his first tooth and shut the door before he knew what happened

and out it came.   But neither Penny or Jeff buried their lost first tooth in the dirt!