Philosophical Monday: The Real Baby Gap

I don’t know if I mentioned this yet, but Betty’s two bottom teeth came in on the day we returned from Hawaii. Crazy, right! And now we’re waiting for the top two to come through. Of course this has me wondering about whose teeth she will inherit. I think I’ve mentioned before that my sister got my mother’s buxom healthy teeth, while I got my father’s short stubby teeth.

And there’s one more thing that I inherited from my father that my sister didn’t: A kick-ass gap. I know that there are some people who hated their gaps and closed them and some people who learned to love their gaps as they got older. But I’ve loved my gap as long as I can remember, and I can still recall my childhood dentist saying, “You don’t want to close up your gap do you, Ernessa? We can do it right now, since we’re putting in your adult caps.”

My front two teeth are fake. I chipped them beyond recognition while jumping from bed to bed in Superman repose. It was all fun and games until my foot got caught in the blanket. But even though my teeth weren’t technically real, I answered the dentist promptly and firmly. “Oh no, no, no,” I said, “I want to keep my gap.”

And now I’m waiting to see if Betty gets this one physical asset that I really, really want her to inherit from me. We’ll see. But other moms, what physical asset do you hope your child will inherit from you? Let me know in the comments and enjoy this Jezebel article, about how a few women are getting their cosmetic oral surgery reversed and asking to get their gaps put back in, b/c their inspired by actresses like Anna Paquin from True Blood.