Change

Little Boy got his first fillings today, three of them, and a cap as well. I feel like a bad Mum when I think about that, why the hell didn't I floss more? Anyway. When he smiles, I can see the cap, an ugly silver chunk tucked in the corner of his beautiful smile. I hate it. It makes me want to cry. His perfect smile, changed forever. Now we'll have pictures from Before and After today.

Usually, the children grow and change in such tiny ways, we're spared the shock of it. Other days we come face to face with these changes, the little trials and tolls exacted upon the perfect bodies of our once newborn babies. There are fillings, scars, and tiny freckles that appear where there were none before. We know, because we are the mothers, and the warm, solid flesh of our children is our holy land, the place where we worship whatever Creator we are grateful to.

And so I mourn a little today, and I feel a little silly, because it's just a filling. It's not an amputation. The tooth will fall out. And anyway, he does still smile, after all.