The Turn Tooth Picture Day Photo Results*

Do you remember our prize-winning parenting moment a few weeks back where we bribed our daughter not to wiggle her wiggly “turn tooth” until after her school picture day?

Maybe bribe isn’t the right word. We “incentivized”. (That makes me feel better. ha)

S really did /  does have the most beautiful baby teeth. Not that her smile is any less beautiful with her two bottom teeth missing, but now she looks like she’s aged 5 years and is officially a “big kid”. M wanted one more school photo of her with her teeth before beginning the years of missing teeth school photos which document that our kid is growing up way faster than we want her to.

She managed to hold off her tooth wiggling and kept in her tooth for picture day. She did so well that we took her on a special trip to the Disney Store and let her pick out which barbie she wanted, and we let her open it a day early.

The next day she picked out a beautiful pink dress with white, floral leggings and she even let me put a bow in her hair. We practiced some smiles in the mirror and off she went, ready to smile her million dollar smile. It’s a good thing too, as her tooth fell out that very night and our little pumpkin became a jack o’ lantern just in time for Hallowe’en.

I love getting the school photos back. Part of me still gets excited about the idea of cutting up a sheet, writing messages to a friend and passing them out like collectables. I still have a stack of my friends’ school photos that I received over the years, complete with inside jokes and nicknames I can’t always remember. We’ve been waiting (im)patently for her photos to come back, and this week I actually squealed out loud when I saw the big white envelope in her zippy. I pulled it out, anxious to see her pictures… and started laughing out loud.

I casually left the envelope on the kitchen counter and waited for M to come home from work. After he walked in the door I mentioned (in passing) that S’s photos were back. He raced to the kitchen to see them, then I heard him yell out and start laughing.

S looks beautiful in her dress with her hair done, and is smiling a little… WITH HER MOUTH CLOSED. I swear it looks like she’s smirking.

I can see it in her eyes. This is totally a “This is for not letting me wiggle my turn tooth but I still wanted a Barbie and I got it, sucka” intentional no tooth smile.

Well played, child. Well played.

(We still think she’s pretty cute, no-tooth smile and all.)