A Wiggle Goes a Long Way

There are some moments in parenthood that no one prepares you for. One of them happened to me recently.

Picture this: we’re in the movie theater watching the new Minions movie, with the 8-year-old sitting between me and my husband. I have a plastic tray with pretzel bites in my hands, while Mikey has the ginormous bucket of popcorn in his lap and a bag of Skittles in one hand and a slushie in the other. My husband has the tub of soda and a package of Twizzlers in his possession.

We didn’t reserve seats ahead of time so we have to sit in the second row and crane our necks to take in the big screen.

After the 47,682 trailers that precede the feature movie, the Illumination logo comes on and Minions begins.

Mikey immediately leans over and whisper-shouts at me, “Mom! … MOM!”

I shush him and lean in. “What?” I whisper.

He waves me closer with a hand that is so greasy I can see the light from the screen bouncing off his fingers.

I lean a little farther. “What is it?”

He cups that greasy hand around his mouth, and I’m so close that it’s also touching my face. He whispers, “I need you to pull my tooth out.”

I pull back a little and get a good look at him, and I can see that he’s using the tip of his tongue to wiggle is front right tooth – and it is, indeed, very wiggly.

Looking back at the goods in my lap, I flop the little aluminum flap back over on the cheese dip and lean over the child to jab my husband with the plastic container. His eyes never leave the screen as he reaches a hand out and takes whatever I’m handing to him, a dopey smile on his face as he laughs at whatever is happening on the screen.

Then I attempt to extract the tooth. I squint and swivel to try and get a good look inside Mikey’s mouth, and I feel the tooth moving around in there, but either there’s too much saliva on it, or my fingers are too greasy from the popcorn butter to get a good grip.

Either way, my fingers are slipping right off.

“It’s going to have to wait until after the movie,” I whisper to him.

“But Mom, I can’t eat my popcorn. What if I swallow my tooth.”

Fair.

“Fine,” I whisper. “Let’s go out into the hallway.

He nods, and I take the bucket of popcorn from his hands and shove that at my husband, who is still living his best life. Then I take Mikey’s candy and put it in my pocket, and put his slushie in the holder.

Together, we duck and shuffle out of the aisle. Thankfully this theater is roomy, so we don’t have to do the whole “Excuse me… So sorry!” as we pass all the other movie-goers.

Of course we end up at the wrong side and have to duck and sprint past the front row – and the entire theater – to get to the side that has the exit door.

When we finally get into the hallway the lighting isn’t any better, so we head for the concession area. Angling Mikey in the best lighting I can find, I tip his head this way and that, and with a napkin I attempt to grab the tooth in question.

He immediately pulls away with an “Owe!” and shakes his head. “It’s not ready,” he tells me.

Of course it’s not.

So we head back to the theater, duck and shimmy back down our aisle, and take our seats. Mikey elbows his Dad who passes the popcorn back down the line, blissfully unaware of the events that have transpired.

That was four days ago and the suspect tooth is still in place.

Holly Crocco is editor of the Putnam County Press & Times and mother of an 8-year-old boy. She can be reached at editorial@putnampresstimes.com.