Our Special Eccentric Toothless Boy Wonder

It seems like every family has one! That odd individual who is just a bit different from all the rest. This afternoon, I overheard my husband talking with my ES about MS. At first he described him as "special."

I think ES was a bit worried by this term. He said, "You mean he's special, as in special ed?"

"No, he's just unusual. He's ... what's the word I'm looking for ... he's eccentric."

ES said, "What does that mean?"

I jumped in, "Eccentric means out of the ordinary, different."

Hubby then clarified, "Eccentric means out of the center. Off from what you would normally expect."

I, of course, was trying to think of what words I would use to describe my middle boy. He is intense. ES was intense, but in a physical way. MS is intense in a verbal/imaginative way. He doesn't have interests; he has obsessions. He doesn't just like Halloween; he eats, sleeps and breathes Halloween all year long (especially in costumes).

I know that those little boys have taken the pretend dog play a bit too far lately. In the middle of the night, I heard one of them barking. I went in to check on them, but they were both asleep. Before I left the room, I heard it again, "woof. woof. woof-woof." Hope he found a good bone in that dream!

Anyway, I distinctly remember how old my ES was when he lost his first tooth, because I was working in a kindergarten classroom that year. All of my kindergartners were losing teeth, left and right (or should I say top and bottom?), but ES, who was in first grade still hadn't lost his first tooth. One finally came out during the last few weeks of first grade, when he had just turned 7.

We had an inkling that something was up, earlier this month, because MS began to put his fingers in his mouth constantly. On Monday, he showed us that the tooth was loose. ES offered to pull it out for him, but MS ran away screaming. He wouldn't pull it out, but he wouldn't let anyone else near it either. Plus, he wouldn't eat anything (despite efforts to convince him that slurping a smoothie wouldn't bother his tooth at all).

Finally, Tuesday, his teacher informed me that the tooth came out, effortlessly, at lunch time (not that he had eaten a bite). They put it in a plastic baggie and he began to talk of the tooth fairy. Apparently, MS believes the tooth fairy is a man, since he keeps referring to the fairy as "he."

I'm pretty sure ES's tooth fairy was indeed a "he" and he gave more money than my own tooth fairy ever brought me or my siblings. However, I think MS is wrong on this point. I'm pretty sure his tooth fairy is a "her" (some things seem oh so obvious!). And I think she had a tough time making the exchange. Like I said, MS is intense!

Next came the talk of a wallet. Now that the boy had paper money, he felt it was extremely necessary to have a wallet like his big brother and his dad. I took him to the thrift store on Friday and he picked out a zippered coin purse for 99 cents. I couldn't argue. Big brother shot him down the minute he laid eyes on the "wallet." He declared it a "girl's wallet."

MS didn't back down. It was the one he picked out and he liked it! But, he did happily go along with me when I said that I would buy him a Spiderman or Batman wallet, if we ever came across one.