Excitement ensued!

As I was heading up the stairs to chase the children into bed, I heard sudden chaos erupt above me. I couldn't sort out the cause; I could only discern that Maggie was somehow hysterical. I turned the corner and looked up to the top of the steps to see a look of stunned, excited, horror on her face as blood dripped down her chin into her hand.

Now, chaos is nothing new around here. Hysteria doesn't really cause ripples either. But the blood was a bit unusual. And, given Maggie's newfound squeamishness over blood, the fact that she wore only a bemused expression added to my confusion. She wasn't staring accusingly at either brother, either.

It took some time to sort out that she had apparently "whammed her face into the wall." (Don't ask. I don't know. There may have been two wrestling brothers involved.) Doing so seemed to have knocked out one of her front teeth. Fortunately, it had already been loose. In fact, it has been the subject of her complaints for several weeks now. She has been very excited and anxious to lose her first tooth.

We wiped the blood up off the carpet, then proceeded to hunt, but that tooth was nowhere to be found. (I have my suspicions.) It was bedtime, but Maggie was not at all sure about going to bed without that tooth under her pillow. I assured her repeatedly that the tooth fairy will find it in the dark, wherever it is. After all, how does she usually find a small tooth under a big pillow in the dark of night, anyway? The fairy's chemoreceptors for lost teeth are obviously exquisitely evolved for this task. So, what's going to stop her from finding that tooth in the hallway (or in a stomach?)? Hopefully I told the truth about that. It has been my experience, actually, that the tooth fairy has much greater trouble with remembering to retrieve a tooth than with finding it.