A Little Boy's Fall For Grace

My daughter has lost 8 teeth so far, and until today my son had lost just the bottom two. They've both written letters to their Tooth Fairies and discovered that hers is called Gretel and his is called Grace.

Just before we left America on Sunday, one of my son's top teeth moved into a new phase of wobbliness. By this morning, after some frantic jiggling, he was able to poke it out of his mouth like Nanny McPhee.

This afternoon he cried out, in a panic, that his wobbly tooth really hurt. As I walked towards him, I saw him give it a big tug, his head went slowly down onto the table and then he fell backwards to the floor. The tooth was out and he had fainted.

He awoke almost immediately and started crying so I picked him up and took him upstairs to lie down on my bed. He was white as milk with no colour in his lips, and his eyes were scarily sleepy. He had a headache and pins and needles in his shoulders. I reassured him but needed reassurance myself, so I called my parents. Then I called the doctor, who said as long as he hadn't banged his head on the way down I should keep him home and let him rest. The poor little boy felt awful.

After a while his cheeks were pinker and he looked less worried so I took him downstairs for a drink, some cookies and Bedknobs and Broomsticks on DVD. He got back to his normal bouncy self as the evening progressed. As he put that troublesome tooth in an envelope for Grace, he thought for a moment and said: "if I write and tell her this tooth made me faint, do you think she'll give me more money?"