Loose Tooth Update: 6:25 p.m. We were just finishing our dinner when Daniel suddenly cried out, "I swallowed my tooth!" The poor kid was devastated. I don't know what was bothering him more: the thought that he wouldn't have anything to put under his pillow or the idea of his tooth traveling through his digestive system, the way the marble went through Stephen. I assured him that the tooth fairy would know about the tooth and bring him something anyway.

Vandals

10:05 a.m. Daniel appeared in our room this morning as we were prying ourselves out of bed a half hour earlier than usual to begin our new schedule, and announced, excitedly, "My tooth is loose!" He's been claiming his tooth was loose for weeks, but it never felt loose to me when I wiggled it. This time there was no doubt. The center left bottom tooth was askew, looking like a little white tombstone listing to the side. It wasn't ready to come free yet, so we told Daniel that if it fell out during school, he should give it to Miss Dawn to keep for us.

I was surprised at my reaction to this news. I actually felt myself tear up. This tooth has been here almost as long as Daniel himself has; Daniel was not even four months old when this first tooth appeared, and now it is almost gone. My little guy will be losing his baby smile; soon he'll have a mouthful of teeth too large for his little jaw.

3:05 p.m. This morning Tab yelled at the twins when he got them out of their cribs and discovered that they had been busily shredding animal cards I had given them. We never had this problem with Daniel. We used to allow him to take books to bed with him from the time he was two, but we've had to prohibit all paper products from the beds of these little vandals. Every time we relax the rules, thinking they have outgrown the tendency toward rampant destruction, they make confetti out of paper or tissues yet again.

Before putting them in for their nap today, I made them clean up every scrap of the latest mess of paper. By the time they had finished, the wastebasket was nearly overflowing, and I thought they had been properly chastened. Wrong again.

An hour after they went to bed, they were still talking and laughing. I went upstairs to warn them that if they didn't sleep, they would not be allowed to play on the computer. I noticed that Stephen was clutching something shiny and was afraid for a moment that he had gotten hold of glass, but when I took it from him, I saw that it was some kind of reflective paper. Then I noticed pieces of chewed-up cardboard littering his mattress. Literally chewed: I picked a piece up and it was wet.

"What in the world did you do?" I asked. Stephen stared up at me, saucer-eyed and mute. He silently handed me a little plastic container of multi-colored beads, and I suddenly realized that what I was looking at was the chewed up remains of his cardboard kaleidoscope. I was livid. I shouted at him that this was it! The last straw! No more toys in his crib! Ever! And I took Beanie babies, Matchbox cars, and his blankies (a couple of ratty old cloth diapers he loves) and hurled them in to an empty box. A two-piece plastic bowl came apart as I tossed it after the other toys. "Mama, you broke it!" cried Stephen.

I turned to Matthew, who was pretending to be asleep, lying on his stomach with his legs tucked underneath him and his bottom in the air. "And that goes for you, too!" I yelled, equal-opportunity tyrant that I am. Matthew cried as I removed all of his precious stuffed animals--Baby, Honey, and Dusty the bunnies; Skipper Squirrel; Ethan the bear; Kanga, Ferdy Bull; and Timothy Tiger. Then I stormed downstairs to cool off.

The crying continued up there for a few minutes, subsiding into a fiercely muttered conversation. I went upstairs to tell them to knock it off, but paused on the stairs to eavesdrop. They were unanimous in their censure of me.

"I want my animals back, Reno," Matthew wailed.

"Mama broke my bowl, Matthew."

"Bad mama."

"I don't love Mama any more."

"Mama is a pain in the neck."

"I will squish her."

"Throw Mama away in the garbage."

I had to stifle my laughter. Then I went back in, gave Stephen one blankie and Matthew his choice of one animal, told them to go to sleep, and left. I wonder if the twins think of me somewhat as the ancient Greeks regarded their capricious, powerful, inscrutable gods of Mt. Olympus: I give, and I take away, and, sometimes, I give back.

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