Through a Child's Eyes

This weekend I came face to face, quite literally, with the demons of my adolescence.  My congenitally missing lateral incisors.  As a teenager I endured a five plus years of braces, tooth extractions, retainers, rubber bands and finally dental implants to fill in spaces left where no permanent teeth grew.  (Yet another fun genetic grab bag item in my family).  Friday one of those implants failed me in a big way and let's just put it this way, he is no longer with me.  I'm just a wee bit (translation: super duper enormously) sensitive about walking around missing a tooth right in the front part of my mouth so I was joking with my kids that they will have to put up with pirate mom until a temporary replacement is made.  To which they responded that I was not even a good pirate because they at least have gold teeth.  (Sigh).  Some days I just can't win.