Carson lost his second tooth amid last Friday’s bomb threat situation at his school.
That’s a sentence I never thought I would ever write.
It happened as we were walking to our car from a field. When it fell out, he let me know, and it just so happened to be in the grass where the students and teachers were huddled waiting for parent pickups.
At that time, it was a pretty big deal to me. Like most parents, I just wanted to get out of there as the scene was a bit hectic. We probably added to the weirdness of it all by searching around on all fours for a 5-year-old’s little missing tooth.
At one point, Carson knew I was getting a little frustrated we couldn’t find it and sweetly took off his glasses and offered them to me.
After a few minutes of searching, I found it and we were off to the car but not before I realized Carson, who was now bleeding slightly where the tooth was a few minutes ago, didn’t have his glasses. It was back to the grass to seek them out while Carson had a tissue on his mouth. Fortunately, it was easy to find them.
Considering we never found his first tooth, this second tooth was a must find. A few weeks ago, his first tooth came loose while at school and he must have swallowed it unknowingly while he was eating. I did my best to try and locate it through some unpleasant searches but did not have any luck. This second tooth was a little easier to find.
I was happy to be able to report to my wife he was not only just fine but that he had also finally lost a tooth that was recoverable. It helped bring some levity to what was a serious situation.
I’m not a fan of my son Beckett’s new nickname for me.
“Gramps” is what he has started calling me. While he says it with affection, I’m not so sure. He adds he has started calling me that because of this onslaught of gray hair that is now appearing on my head. He started counting the gray hairs the other day and stopped counting at 500 because he got bored. It was funny how he went about it as well. He started by counting one by one, then went to 10s and then to 50s and then jumped to counting by 100s.
My response usually goes along the lines of the gray hairs along one side of my head are from him, while the other side is from his little brother Carson and the disturbing trend on top — the graying and the hair racing away from my forehead — is from our business.
“Okay, gramps, I got it,” he typically replies.
It’s not nice but it sure is hilarious.
Getting the kids involved in the household chores has been a priority of late, although it’s not going well.
It’s actually been hugely unsuccessful because I just don’t have the energy to fight them at their ages, 7 and 6. They simply want to get a little cash or an app for a device but don’t think they should have to do anything.
Perhaps my expectations are too high, but I think they should be helping more around the house to ease their parents’ load.
For example, the other morning, we were all walking out to the truck and I had my hands full while the kids pushed each other around in the front yard, as is typically the case. I don’t even recall saying it, but apparently I used the phrase, “make yourself useful” to them when I asked them to take the empty trash cans from the curb around to the side of the house.
After fielding questions as to why I would leave the cans out front overnight, they finally started on the task. Rather than each taking one of the cans, Beckett thought it was a better idea to throw their backpacks in one and help his brother Carson in for a ride. I got wind of that fortunately as Beckett was using his hands as a boost and Carson had one leg in already.
I was quick to put a stop to that and able to coerce the kids into each grabbing a can and pulling it to the house as I asked. Beckett managed his fine, but Carson struggled and I let it go, regrettably. The weight of it pulled him over and the can crashed into my truck, resulting in a new scrape. He was fine and now in jolly fashion points out the new addition to the truck each day.
Another example would be the other night when it was just Carson and I at home. He likes to help load the dishwasher but he has to be watched because he will put anything and everything in it without a care in the world.
On this night, he was a huge help and did most of the job, including putting in the detergent. He even followed my directions of which buttons to hit and when to start it. After a minute, I couldn’t find my phone and remembered he can’t be trusted so I went back and opened the dishwasher to make sure there was nothing awry.
It turns out there was my phone jammed into the utensil tray. No damage was done, fortunately, but it did return us to square one on the suitable home chore search.