Episodes of a Dad – Part 1

If you would have asked me 10 years about how many kids I would have or what kind of dad I would be I would have looked at you like you were from another planet. Fast forward 10 years and 3 kids later and I would not want to be anything else than my kids dad.

Gavin (5), Audrey (3), Grant (6 months) and my beautiful wife Cherlyn are the reason I get up every morning. Well that and my daughter likes to wake me up at 5:30 in the morning. Outside of trying to be a good role model and teaching them the ways of the world I occasionally have to perform a “Dad” duty.

Last night was one of those times. Being a medic in my time in the Army you would think that I would not have any issues with anything to do with a health related issue. I have given IV’s, numerous injections, etc… so last night my son Gavin had a loose tooth.

Being the trooper that he was he wanted me to pull it. No problem right? Step 1 reach in mouth, Step 2 grip tooth, Step 3 forcefully extract, Step 4 bask in the toothless glory of his new smile. Except somewhere between Step 2 and Step 3 I ran into a slight issue.

The tooth was definitely ready to go from the initial look and feel. I asked how he felt, he tensed but was ready. Then the first pull…. no tooth in my hand… a bit of blood and some screaming ensued. Tried again no go. So this right of passage is becoming an episode of Friday the 13th. Now as a dad there is nothing worse than seeing one of your children in pain so what do you want to do? Remove the source of pain right?

So now it was about distracting and calming. So I used the “let’s dry your mouth” as an opportunity to pull it while he was calm. A few wipes, a quick snap and the tooth was out. Back to my army reference. The site of blood does not bother me, but something about seeing the blood of one of your own definitely took me back a step or two. That and physically removing a piece of bone from your little ones mouth.

Well here was the finished result… mission accomplished :)