Apparently I Wasn't Mom Enough for the Job

We were walking into Walmart today and I watched a smoker toss her cigarette on the ground and walk away. That irks me. Seriously. How difficult is it to carry that butt another 30 feet and put it in the trash can so prominently displayed right at the door? Littering is never cool, whether it's a small cigarette butt or a McWrapper from lunch or a dirty baby diaper. (Yeh, I've seen that, too. Sadly.)

Five steps inside Walmart (after passing the McEnticeYourKids counter) Micah showed me his loose tooth. I had no idea the boy even had a loose tooth, and this thing was so loose it was in danger of falling out any second. I could seriously have just grasped it between my finger and thumb and lifted it out, but I was afraid that there might be blood involved and I wasn't prepared for that. Not that I mind blood, but I didn't have anything to mop it up with. And what if it bled just enough to drool out of his mouth and he noticed it? The boy would freak out over the fact that he was bleeding. Not that he freaks at the sight of blood, mind you, but he does freak over things that don't belong. And blood has no place oozing out of his mouth. He ain't no vampire, yo.

So I played it off with a, "You have a loose tooth! That looks like it'll fall out any minute now." And marched right on to the department I needed. Micah isn't so easily deterred, though. See that thing above where he doesn't like things being outside of their normal. Teeth that wiggle and move are not normal, and he was determined that it needed to be fixed.

He poked it with his tongue, and touched it with his finger. I kind of thought it cute, because out of 4 teeth lost, the boy has only actually wiggled 2. This being the second one. He fussed with it as we walked past the women's clothing, and poked it as we walked past the little girl's clothing. After choosing the shirt I needed in the baby department, we walked through to the grocery section. It was in the toilet paper aisle that I heard a very satisfied, "there" coming from behind me.

That could only mean one thing. I stopped. I turned around. The boy was not messing with his mouth, and grinned proudly to show me that he took care of the problem all by himself that I was not mom enough to handle for him. See? That offending, wiggly thing is gone. And he grinned again and kept walking.

Micah has no concept of what loose teeth are. To him, they are simply annoyances in his mouth that must be removed. He threw one in the trash and flushed one down the toilet. The third was removed by the dentist. A discarded tooth is certainly not something to keep and cherish forever. It's trash, plain and simple. So I had no choice but to ask him where that tooth was. I knew it wasn't in his pocket. Partly because he had no pockets.

He turned around, marched a few paces back the aisle, got down on his hands and knees, and fished his tooth out from under the shelves of paper towels. He then handed it to me, since I am clearly Keeper Of Trash.

Yum. A bloody tooth, covered in Walmart floor grit. Just what I wanted. And I had no choice but to carry that thing all through the store until I found a trash can, because it's never cool to litter, whether it's a small cigarette butt or a discarded tooth.