The Wheels Are Turning

Yesterday Mimi cut a tooth, so she's now the proud owner of two little bottom teeth. Last night I was putting Leiden to bed, and this was the conversation:

Leiden: "Mommy, when will my tooth come in?" (If you haven't noticed, she's missing a tooth, and has been since she was 2 1/2. Read here.)
Me: "Oh, I imagine pretty soon. We just have to wait until it's ready, and it will come right in."
Leiden after a long pause and in her 'I'm-about-to-cry' voice: "Mommy, why is Mimi getting teeth when mine isn't coming in?"
Me, after a second of marveling at how her mind works, and wondering how long she's been worrying about this: "Oh, sweetie! Mimi is just getting her first teeth in. You already got all your first teeth in. Mimi had no teeth before, and you've got a whole mouthful!"

Anyway, the conversation went on after that, and we talked about how all her friends that are just a little older have their big teeth.

Leiden is interesting. She's very difficult to read. All we see is behavioral changes, and then it's left to us to figure out where things went wrong. Then every once in a while, she asks a question that gives us some insight into the workings of her mind, and I'm usually totally surprised. I never, in a million years, would have guessed that she was 'jealous' of Mimi's teeth coming in. This also tells me that she's more self conscious about her tooth than I realized. I tried to be careful when it first happened not to talk about it in front of her, because I was super bothered by the whole change in her appearance, but she must have caught on. Pretty soon, though, she'll not be the only gap-toothed little girl, but one of many. And then pretty soon, she'll have big giant, too-big-for-her-face teeth come in, and this phase will be over. Although having more teeth fall out will probably present its own set of problems for her. Loose teeth sure creep me out, so there will be a lot of faking on my part.