the loss of a child's first tooth is a remarkable and special milestone to be celebrated. each and every tooth after that first one is a medieval and grotesque affair. alex went to school two days ago without a loose tooth in his head. he came home with one rattling around a tiny plastic treasure chest the school nurse gives to kids for lost teeth.

long ago, many years before marty and i had kids, she and i hosted a sleepover for some nieces and nephews. one of the girls complained of a loose tooth at the dinner table. i looked at it and told her i thought it looked fine. she kept saying it was terribly loose. i went as far as pushing on it with my own pointer finger and reported that the tooth was fine, solid and healthy. before dinner was over the girl, with great effort and conviction, had extracted this targeted tooth. she bled out of her mouth for better than an hour and we just kept stuffing replacement paper towels in there after she'd spit a blood soaked one into the kitchen garbage can. i was starting to fear that the girl was going to bleed to death in the night and i told her if it didn't stop hemorrhaging before we went to bed, i was making her father come pick her up. the gaping hole, with no new tooth anywhere in sight, somehow stopped bleeding on its own. the next day, for all i know i was sending the child home with an adult tooth in the linty front pocket of her blue jeans.

again, it's a medieval matter.