It was a quarter past eleven and Damian had been sitting in front of the mirror for nearly an hour. He kept pulling and nudging his loose tooth but he really wasn’t trying at all. He just exclaimed over and over on how loose it was and how it was just dangling on. I was too busy reading and I really wanted him to come to bed. I kept telling him,

“You can mess with it tomorrow, come to bed boy.”

“Not yet Mom, it’s almost out.”

This went on for another ten minutes. By then I was ready to turn off my side lamp and call it a night.

“C’mon Damian, you have tomorrow to do this.”

“I won’t give up Mom! I won’t!”

Two minutes later, half way in tears, with a smile the length of the Kool-Aid’s Man, and a vast amount of blood dripping from his mouth, he held the tiny tooth with his two fingers. Almost the same way a geologist holds a rare gem,

“Told ya I wouldn’t give up!”

 I felt a little proud there. I know it’s just a tooth. But he did it all on his own. And not even my words stopped him from trying. That boy there has a drive. The kind of drive that will take him places one day. I know this. I feel it. I’m just being a Mom. We all feel the same. Our kids are born champions in our eyes. One love. Peace.