June 7

I started to write "I remember when Abby cut her first tooth" but to be totally honest, I don't. It was more than 14 years ago and there are a lot of little (but still precious) details that I can't quite remember these days. And that's okay. But I do remember how exciting it was to watch all four of my kids' bitty mouths slowly fill up with teeth when they were babes. Those teeth signaled the transition between baby and little kid, and I was always ready to have another little person running around the house, driving me crazy, making life more colorful. And then when they started losing those teeth.... Well, even more change was upon us.

So where am I going with this? Good question. Brady went to the dentist yesterday with one tooth that I knew was very, very (as in hanging-by-a-thread) loose. He refused to let me touch it, but gave daily status reports. Anyway, apparently the other front tooth was also very loose, so after checking with me, the dentist popped 'em both out. And voila, he's rocking the no-front-teeth look for now.

I've spent the last 30 hours watching him try --good naturedly-- to eat apples and bread and an array of other foods. When you have front teeth you forget how challenging it can be to bite into much of anything when you don't. But he persevered and found a way to make it happen anyway.

Much of human life is like that: sometimes we're faced with temporary challenges --like missing baby teeth-- that force us to adjust our behavior for a time. But the good news is that temporary human challenges will end. And in fact, all human challenges --both temporary and more enduring-- will fade away when Someday arrives. And that's really good news to me.