When we three Caywood kids were little, we learned not to tell mama when we had a loose tooth or she would check it daily to see if she thought it was ready to pull. It did not take her long to figure out what we were doing either. She began checking our mouths regularly for loose teeth. If they were even half way loose she got her spool of white thread and "forced" us into submission while she tightly wound that tiny thread a couple of times at the base of our tooth. Then she shoved it down to the gum line with a toothpick, before giving that sudden hard jerk.

Sometimes the tooth was not loose enough or not ready to be pulled so the thread slipped off the tooth. How disappointed we were that the tooth was not connected to the thread or on the floor. Mama was relentless. She repeated the process until we had our tooth in our hand. I am certain that is part of the reason why we three kids had nice straight teeth when we grew up. The new incoming tooth certainly did not have any resistance having to push the old one out.

I truly believe mama enjoyed pulling our teeth. When we raised our twelve children, I did not worry that much about helping them lose their teeth, but let “Mother Nature” take its course.

I always just “happened” to have an apple or a piece of sticky candy sitting out for them to eat.