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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

A lost tooth and a lot to say about it!

Ahh, childhood. The one period in your life where if your teeth fall out, not only is it an exciting thing, but you also get paid for it. Chance has reached this tooth losing right of passage, and boy is he excited about it! This is actually the second tooth that he has lost, but there has been a long interval between the losing. Chance had to work harder to compel this second tooth to dislodge. I passed by the bathroom as he was getting ready for school and noticed that he was intently looking at the mirror with his face right up to the glass. I didn't realize the momentous event unfolding though until Chance appeared in my bathroom a few minutes later triumphantly holding his tooth out for me to see.

It is so fun to hear Chance express his excitement about losing his tooth. He has told everyone from neighborhood kids, to teachers at school to anyone else we encountered yesterday. Chance can really tell people the story too. He can tell them how he pulled the tooth out in the bathroom by holding onto it and tugging (the visual expressions on his face are great as he describes this part).

Chance was anxiously awaiting a visit from the tooth fairy, of course, but the whole encounter almost never took place. At almost 9:45, Chance appeared downstairs obviously not sleeping. I was shocked and told him that the tooth fairy could not come if he was not asleep. Chance's eyes welled up with tears, and he said, "What?" I told him that just like Santa, the tooth fairy could not come unless little kids were sleeping. Chance's lip trembled. His dad and I were then quick to tell Chance that there was still time for him to go upstairs and go to sleep before the tooth fairy arrived.

Then I asked Chance if he knew what a fairy was. He said no. Then he asked if the tooth fairy lived in Utah. Chance's dad was leery of googling fairy while Chance stood by to see what would come up. So, we did our best to describe to Chance what a fairy was. His brother (obviously not asleep either) came down at this point...just to check on Chance you see. Now that they were both highly motivated by the fact that the tooth fairy could pass them by, they ran up the stairs together. We could hear Chance's older brother telling him what a fairy was as they went up.

This morning I woke up to Chance opening the little box he left under his pillow with the tooth in it. He was explaining how he got quarters. We've been working on that word so I was glad that he remembered. Chance then told me what was on the back of each quarter(the design on the back is very important to Chance and his brother as is the year).

The beautiful thing about this whole process was Chance's ability to tell the story and his use of vocabulary. His language is coming along by leaps and bounds. He is able to express himself more and relay what he wants to others. I am continually impressed by Chance's language and how well he is doing. It seems that everyday brings new words and phrases that Chance has assimilated into his language base.

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