Keepers vs. Throwers

This cute boy has been "shark boy" for several weeks now due to his double row of teeth. His permanent teeth missed their target and started coming in behind his baby teeth. We kept an eye on it to see what they would end up doing. Knowing what his reaction to shots is, a visit to the dentist to get them pulled was NOT an exciting prospect. With time I noticed the permanent teeth were pushing the baby teeth forward and out of the way. I decided tooth pulling was a definite Dad job. Well, Sunday morning, while Stephen was at meetings, he said he bit his tooth. I checked on it and saw it was barely holding on. I'm proud to announce I've pulled my first tooth that didn't come from my own head. The next one is still Dad's job though.

He looked at his tooth all day. That night we got an envelope ready and put his tooth in it. As I leaned down to give him his good night kiss he teared up. I asked what was wrong. He explained he liked his tooth and didn't want it to get taken. I told him he can't get money till he puts it under his pillow. He didn't care and wanted to keep the tooth. He's our little hoarder, he tries to keep EVERYTHING. We're working really hard to help him overcome this little tendency without doing something that turns him into some crazy that can't walk in his front door someday. Any time something breaks we don't allow him to keep it, he has to throw it away. We'll clean out stuff and he has to donate at least two things. We've pretty much always got a donate box around and he knows we send our stuff to people that don't have any. He kinda gets it, but still wants to keep everything. He gets it from me. I have to work really hard to fight that "keep" impulse. I made a deal that he could keep his tooth for two days then he'd have to let the Tooth Fairy have it. Someday he'll want to strangle me when he finds out how much I've thrown away when he wasn't looking.

In stark contrast Garrett is a thrower. Recently he helped Stephen take some stuff to donate. There were a couple of horses that we brought to them a couple years ago. They didn't work anymore and took up a lot of room so off they went. Garrett said, "Good bye horses I'll see you in 20 minutes" and went on his merry way. One day the boys had been drawing. When they were done I told them to put the pictures away. Garrett asked where. I told him in the garbage or his nightstand. He responded, "OK! I'll throw them in the trash!" I don't know why it was so exciting, but it was. Gabriel's went to the nightstand.
:-)