Leta has been losing teeth at a pace almost as fast as she loses everything else she possesses. She is going to read this and go MOM! She reads everything I write about her these days so I’m going to refrain from typing fuck or shit or Jesus Coldplay Christ, OH THAT REMINDS ME, holy crap the comments on this Facebook post light up my life and give me hope to carry on and fill my nights with song.
I am only exaggerating a little bit, not very much at all, just this much: |<—>|, when I talk about Leta’s ability to misplace things, and it’s kind of not her fault. She comes by it naturally, and that is not a dig at her father. It’s just how DNA tends to work, and to show you that I’m being fair that kid inherited so many personality traits from me that I often call my mother and ask her why she never locked me in an attic while feeding me cookies laced with arsenic. Or gently shoved me in front of a bus.
This is why when Leta says she doesn’t want to have kids I’m like WRONG. YOU HAVE TO LIVE THROUGH RAISING SOMEONE WHO IS EXACTLY LIKE YOU. Circle of life. Wait, that’s not the circle of life. Wild animals eating each other is the circle of life. Hi! I got my degree from BYU and this is what happened.
First she lost one while eating a bowl of Cheerios and I posted it to Instagram (life doesn’t actually happen unless it is chronicled in an Instagram photo DON’T YOU KNOW):
You see the caption on that photo? Whoever runs the Cheerios Instagram account commented on the photo and they were not angry. In fact, they were lovely about the whole thing. AND THEN! Then General Mills sent my kids a care package in the mail full of shirts and cups and bowls and toys smattered with characters from various cereals. That is some killer PR right there. KILL-ERRRR. Kick ass, even. I just typed ass. Sorry. My butt. #NotAnAd
(Seriously, if you work in PR pay attention to that shit. Sorry, crap. UGGHHH. You know what? I will NOT be censored by an 11-yr-old. Fuck it.)
Leta started scheming right then and was like, okay, we’re going to film her singing some lyrics to a Taylor Swift song, post it to Instagram, and then Taylor is going to invite us to her apartment in New York where we are going to nuzzle the shit out of her cats and raid her refrigerator. I was like, you keep shooting for the stars, kid, and I’ll be over here on brand making my father slowly close his eyes, let go of a deep, remorseful breath and think, “I did not pull myself out of the slums of Louisville, Kentucky and endure a life of hardship only to release that into the world.”
Our parents suffered so we could molest plants and record it on our phones!
A couple of weeks ago I was standing by to read with her before bed when she poked her head out of her bathroom, her toothbrush in her mouth, to shriek, “There’s a hole in my mouth!”
I was like, yeah. It’s called your throat.
“NO! Like, right here in the front!”
So I guess she was eating a burrito earlier in the evening—a very specific type of frozen burrito made by a company in Utah, sold only in Utah, so no, CAROL, when we visit you in Edina, Minnesota you can’t just grab any frozen burrito from Jerry’s Foods and think that my child will be nourished during our stay, listen to what I said earlier and buy eight boxes of Cheerios—when she bit down on something hard. Except there are no hard things in a Lynn Wilson bean and cheese burrito last time she checked, and she was telling me all of this while toothpaste dripped out of her mouth. And then the realization hit her like a wok to the face OH MY GOD SHE SWALLOWED HER TOOTH. Which I guess is the worst thing that has ever happened to her? Haha! Remember when parents used to spank their kids? Good times!
(You’re going to comment that you spank your kids and I am not going to judge you publicly. I’ll just silently hide the horror on my face behind this wool shawl as I vigorously rub a handful of crystals and commune with Mother Earth. Then I’ll need to get nude and walk through a natural hot spring, my arms spread open to let the eagle of my spirit escape into the night sky. You can already feel the breeze from its vast wings as it soars over mountains and, oh fuck. It just hit a tree. You killed my eagle.)
After I asked her to rinse her mouth before proceeding with the word volcano she charted a course of irrational thought that resembled a map of the flight paths of every plane I have flown on this year (94,000 miles and counting). Would it cut her stomach open? Would it stay in her stomach forever? Would it dissolve and release dangerous bone chemicals into her blood? What’s your damage? Who is John Galt? Who’s on first? What’s in the box?
I told her people swallow teeth all the time and it would only hurt a lot when it came out of her butt.