My kids have mouths full of politicians

A DAD'S LIFE:My kids have long-life baby teeth: they refuse to go. Like itty bitty stained ceramics, they sit atop their gums long after their sell-by date, wearing away on all sides but resolutely staying in the face of all encouragement to move on. My kids have mouths full of politicians.

The poor younger one. The rest of her class march around with their giant grown-up choppers, showing off how they can chew through iron bars and use their front molars as table tennis bats.

She keeps her mouth shut, her stumpy baby teeth still doing a job, but minuscule beside the kilos of brand new porcelain paraded by her peers.

The four on the bottom have departed and been replaced, but the topmost line is made of sterner stuff, although she has managed to loosen them somewhat, at tortoise pace.

Tooth fairy

I seem to remember that, back in the day, I’d get a hint of a tooth creaking and spend 24 hours crow-barring it before, with a mouthful of blood and shreds of gum, presenting my latest extraction to my mother for a valuation in advance of the tooth fairy’s visit.

With no time for hanging round, I worked that baby at the slightest suggestion of weakness.

There was currency in my head that could instead be in my pocket, currency in my head to buy what could rot that currency. Sugar to be had.

Not so the younger. Yeah, the sugar craving is strong in this one but impetuous she is not.

Her top two teeth have been at the “loose” stage for so long now, the rate of change can only be detected by the increasing angle she pushes them behind her large lower incisors while I read to her at night.

Jiggling the offenders

She plays with them as she concentrates, jiggling the offenders with her tongue in the consideration of a plot twist or ambiguous phrasing.

“So, is Fiver like magic or something?” dentistry dragged inward. “And Bigwig, he’s tough but kinda nice anyway, yeah?” now they’re forced forward. “But Hazel’s my favourite. He’s really nice and he takes care of all the rabbits,” they get a delighted jiggle, fore and aft.

Today I have her in the car outside the dentist. She is torn between excitement at having been taken from her class in the middle of the day and fear at what might happen inside the surgery.