First Crush

photo by Magic Studio

Nora screams from her room that her tooth is loose, and I think she is trying to trick me again. For so long, almost two years, she has been waiting for her first tooth to fall out. She comes running down the stairs and plants herself before me in the kitchen, her hair messy from having been in school all day. She pulls down on her lower lip and instructs me to jiggle a front tooth on the bottom row.

Sure enough, this time a tooth is loose.

“See!” she says. “See!” Then, she runs to the bathroom and orders Erin to follow her. I hear the squeals and excitement between the girls. I hear Erin asking her sister if the tooth hurts.

I feel relieved and ecstatic for Nora. She is mature and strong in many ways, and even though there is no correlation between physical strength and how soon baby teeth will fall out, I am surprised that it has taken this long for her to experience her first tooth loss. Of all her friends, she is the last one to reach this milestone. But amidst my relief, there is also trepidation.

At dinner Nora interrogates Danith and me on when the tooth will actually fall out. She wonders how much the tooth fairy will leave her.

“Soon,” I say.

“Tomorrow?” she asks, her round face full of hope.

“Not tomorrow, but soon. I promise.”

“In two days?”

“Probably not in two days. But it will come out. We just have to wait and be patient.”

She doesn’t look satisfied. I remember when I was a kid waiting for these monumental moments to arrive, so I am empathetic. But I am also worried. She wants to be a big girl so badly, and so soon. I have to give her repeated talks about heels, eyeshadows, two-piece swimsuits, long glittery nails, dangling earrings, and crushes, the latter weighing on me like an overdue mammogram that I have yet to schedule. You will get to experience all of those things, my love, I promise, just not now, okay? I would tell her.

A couple of months back, over a plate of Belgian waffles and a cup of orange juice, I told two friends, “She’s boy-crazy.” A groan that rattled in my throat followed, at which my friends, sitting across the table from me, lightly chuckled.

“At this age, they really don’t know what a crush is,” one of them said, surely attempting to calm my anxiety about my almost seven-year-old's future. All three of us have daughters in the first grade. “They hear the word being used, so they use it, without even understanding it.”

“I think Nora understands it. I can tell when she brings up the name of a boy.” I explained how Nora wears a smile that she tries to hide but can’t. How she begins to speak more quickly and urgently, and how, when her younger sister wants to add pieces of information to the story that she is telling me, she vehemently shushes her…because she is embarrassed. How these are all tell-tale signs of a crush! "Right?" I asked, not wanting to be right, of course.

Rather slowly, and maybe a bit too methodically, my friends sawed into their perfectly browned and spongy waffles with their knives (we had all ordered the same breakfast). They were weighing the reasons for my fear and were carefully considering their responses, I could tell. They must have known that I was not going to be fond of their next few words.

"Are you afraid that her school work will suffer?"

"No!" I exclaimed, because I didn’t want to be pegged as that Asian mother who prizes academics over everything else. However, I kept to myself that, indeed, visions of Nora failing tenth grade have popped up in my head. “I just don't want her to be loosey goosey." Then, because I felt guilty for having painted my daughter as a...well, a loosey goose...I quickly added about myself, “But I was boy-crazy, too, when I was her age. And I turned out okay. I guess I have to remember that. Right?”

My first crush was a boy named Shea. We were in Mrs. Carson's second grade class at Campbell Park Elementary. His best friend and loyal sidekick was Sylvester, a quiet boy of small stature, and his cousin was Vicki, a tall athlete who beat everyone in PE. All the girls who had begun to understand why boys were different from us, giggled and blushed around Shea. And to our credit, we were right to crush on him; he was smart, polite, and well-dressed. Free play at recess was the best time of the day because nothing was more thrilling than having Shea’s goal be that of tagging us.

In the next few days, Nora's loose tooth becomes even looser, and she requests each of us to assess it throughout the day. She pleads with us to help her pull it out so that the tooth fairy can visit; she has even sewn a tooth pouch to be placed underneath her pillow. I try with my fingers, but I can't get much of a grip and the tooth is not budging. She informs her father that her classmates suggest using a string. To my surprise, Danith rejects that idea immediately, but says that he will give it a go with tweezers. After a couple of attempts with my good tweezers, though, he gives up. "It is not ready to come out just yet," we tell her. She wants to know when it will be ready, and I tell her soon. A friend of mine offers her a more definite answer: within two or three days.

I am noticing lately that Nora does not talk about the boys in her class as frequently as she used to. In addition to being concerned about her being boy-crazy, I am now worried that she might be hiding her feelings from me. And that is even worse. Because how can I help her navigate her relationships if she doesn't tell me anything? What if...and I'm looking at ten, twenty, thirty years down the road...she waits to tell me of problems with her boyfriend or husband? How will I be able to help her and keep her safe? Could the reason for her secrets be that she is afraid of telling me? That fear is so much a part of me -- the way my name or birthdate is a part of me. I decide to approach my talks with her differently.

We are in the living room, and I grab her by the waist and set her on my lap. Outside a thin sheet of snow is covering the grounds, and I can feel the cold air wanting to come in through the windows. I set my chin on her shoulder. “You know, “boys are just boys. They are nothing special. They are just friends.”

"I know, Momma," she says pleasantly, kicking out her legs. She is too big to sit comfortably on the lap of my petite frame. “You told me that already.”

"Do you have a crush on anyone?" I ask.

"No."

"Are you sure? I don't want you to have crushes, but you will not get into trouble if you do."

"I'm sure."

"Will you tell me if you do?"

"Yes."

I kiss the back of her head. Her hair is in need of a good wash, but the mustiness of it combined with her tender age is still a scent of sweetness and innocence. I am not confident that she is being forthcoming with me, but I don’t know what else to say. She is too young for red nail polish and bikinis and large hoop earrings and liking a boy, and for me to explain some things.

After the waffle breakfast, I saw another friend for a walk. We had chosen to meet at the indoor track in the rec center. Our daughters are in class together, and we have a mutual understanding of looking out for each other’s kids. After we apprised each other of our new home plumbing issues and mull over possible PTA committees to volunteer for, she shared her dilemma. Her daughter, who has severe food allergies, has a cavity and needs a filling, and she couldn’t decide if she should make the dental appointment with the regular dentist or with the children’s hospital in case an emergency arises. “Do you know that there is milk in fluoride? Man, the constant worrying about our kids,” she said. That fact about parenting led us to discuss how best to parent, how to set the best examples for our children so that they could make the best choices for themselves.

“But,” I said, “some kids, no matter how hard the parents try, still make poor decisions.”

“I know,” she agreed. “Oof, what do we do?“

I began to tell her about an old friend of mine. “Her sister and brother-in-law are great people. I met them a few times. They are hardworking, loving, upstanding. Just beautiful people. They have great relationships with both of their kids. Great family life, you know. Their daughter went on to become a doctor. But she ends up marrying a man who takes advantage of her and disrespects her. She doesn’t see this because she loves him!”

“I don’t know what I’ll do if either of my kids ends up with someone who hurts them,” my friend admitted.

“I know!” I almost yelled. In truth, I have shared with a couple of people that I would be capable of actions that would land me in jail, if either of my girls found herself in an abusive relationship. "So, I have a plan for the next time Nora tells me she has a crush on some boy.”

“What is it?” she asked. I could tell that she was excited for me.

“I’m going to ask her, ‘Is that boy anything like your father?’ I want her to have what I have. And the thought that she won’t, and that her father and I will be dead and not be around to protect her…gahhhh. I can’t. I just can’t bear it.” My friend and I simultaneously paused in our walk, and I knew that she understood my anguish. “So I hope my question gets her thinking, you know.”

Now Nora can push the wiggly tooth with the tip of her tongue, like it is a porch swing. She tells me that the tooth hurts her, so I offer to help.

“I can try to pull it out for you,” I say. I plan to grab it more firmly this time and yank it out in one swift motion.

“Will it hurt?” she asks.

“A little.” I like to be honest with my girls when it comes to pain. I think this has served us well at doctor’s visits because they know what to expect. They might not like getting shots, but they will sit calmly through it, trusting that the pain will be short-lived.

Nora accepts my offer and opens her mouth, and I wash my hands. But as I approach her, she snaps her mouth shut. Fear is in her eyes.

“You weren’t scared about us trying to pull it before,” I remind her. "In fact, you begged us to."

She shakes her head.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “There is no rush. You can wait.”

Later that night, after I’ve tucked Nora and Erin in bed, Danith and I are in our room, and he is telling me about his day. As I am laughing about his colleagues' antics, Nora saunters in.

“It hurts, Momma.” She opens her mouth wide for me. I walk her to my bathroom where the light is better. The tooth is so loose that it moves and lodges itself in an awkward placement, creating the discomfort and annoyance. I wash my hands and touch her tooth, which causes her to quickly jerk back.

“It is ready to come out,” I say to her and Danith.

“I’m scared,” she says.

“My love, it will be fast.”

Danith holds her face with both hands and examines the tooth, and pulls out a vanity drawer for the floss. Nora wants to know what he will do with it. He explains that he will use it as the string to pull out the tooth.

“Will it hurt?” she asks.

I lead her to a chair in my room and sit her on my lap. I hold her and squeeze her, so happy for her that tonight will be the night. I ask her about what she will do with the money that the tooth fairy will bring her.

As Danith approaches her with the floss, one end tied into a hoop, Nora flinches. I tell her that she can have a popsicle afterward. Danith expertly encircles the loose tooth with the hoop, but as he pulls back on the floss, the tooth slips out. Nora lets out a scream. I tease her that nothing has even happened. She feels for her tooth. Danith tries again, pushing the floss down around the tooth. I watch him swiftly yank on the floss, and then I see the empty space in Nora's mouth. It is brightening with some blood.

When Nora sees her father backing away, she cries and asks if he will have to try again. "It's going to hurt," she says.

“My love,” I say, “the tooth already came out.”

She jolts up from sitting on me. Her eyes are full of disbelief. “What? It came out! What?” She shoots up to a standing position and demands to see her first lost tooth. Danith places the perfectly white piece of bone in her palm, and I tell her to be careful with it. "I can't believe it's out. And it didn't even hurt. It didn't even hurt!" She jumps up and down as though she's just won a prize.

After she fetches a pineapple popsicle from the freezer, she returns upstairs, back to my lap. This time I cradle her like I did when she was much younger. She no longer fits in my arms, though, her legs dangling down the side of the chair, and I wonder if she is comfortable. She gingerly licks on the popsicle, telling me again how the tooth coming out didn't hurt. "I didn't even know, Momma!"

"I know," I say. And I want to tell her some things. Like, enduring love should not hurt. There will be a bit of pulling. But never lasting pain.