Mother of the Year

Tonight I made Bagel Bites for my Bear for dinner.  You’ve seen these things, haven’t you?  They’re essentially tiny pizza bagels.  They’re sold and stored frozen; you can cook them in the oven, toaster or microwave.  They’re chock full of nutrients (not), so an ideal dinner for a growing boy (again, not).

Prior to being cooked, the cheese on top of the bagel bites looks like solid little white squares.  As you can see from the photo below, many of the little square cheese bits on the Bagel Bites don’t actually melt flat but remain in various states of square-dom post-heating.

Mmm... such organic, healthy goodness. 

Now that you have the low-down on Bagel Bites, I can proceed with the telling of tonight’s tale.  We were sitting at the dinner table – Bear eating his Bagel Bites, Ballerina and my husband and I eating pasta – when Bear’s little hand suddenly hovered in front of my face. His 6-year-old fingers held what looked like a tiny mass of two or three somewhat unmelted cheese bits.

“Mom,” he said, “is this a tooth? Did I just lose a tooth?”

“Um…,” I stalled, trying to sort out the right response. “Have you had a loose tooth this week?”

“No,” stated Bear.

Full of confidence, I replied, with conviction, “Then no, it’s not a tooth. No worries. Just eat it.”

Bear looked at me with the slightest hint of doubt, but he dutifully put the little blob back in his mouth and crunched down.  He looked at me as he ground down this little bite and swallowed it.  Then dinner continued as usual, and all was forgotten.  Until…

At bedtime, I went to Bear’s room to have our usual little pre-sleep chat.  He was on the ground playing with a few Lego Star Wars figures, so I laid down on the ground near him and propped up my head in my hands, getting comfy for our good night ritual. Something I said to Bear made him smile, and that’s when I noticed this:

See the gap just to the left of Bear’s front tooth?  Yeah, um, that’s what I saw. As it happens, that gap is brand new. Fresh. Wasn’t there earlier today, if you get what I’m saying. And if you don’t, let me spell it out for you.

1. Tonight, I fed my child a really poor excuse of a dinner.
2. During this poor excuse of a dinner, I made my child eat the tiny tooth he lost during said poor excuse of a dinner.

Fortunately, Bear finds this immensely funny. He also realized, after he finished laughing at me, that the opposite tiny tooth is loose, which excites him to no end. Of course, Bear was relieved to hear that the Tooth Fairy magically is aware that he lost a tooth - even though we have no actual tooth to show for it - and will be bringing him some nice pocket change.

And the best part is that all of this gloriousness happened on Mother’s Day.