The other night as we were playing with our new Wii, Girl let the f-word fly. She had lost to Boy again, in her favorite Wii sport, bowling.

We had banned her from Wii boxing because after a loss there, she started flinging the nunchucks at Boy, fists pumping, turning the virtual into reality. She does not lose gracefully, especially not to her smug older brother.

Boy and I just looked at each other in shock when we heard Girl spew out the f-word, and I bit the insides of my cheeks so as not to laugh. Yes, I am a bad mother — I thought it was funny. But I am not such a bad mother that I let her know I thought it was funny.

“Ooooooh, you said a really bad word,” Boy said.

“Yes, that’s a really bad word,” I agreed.

That sent her crying into the other room. How could I convey the severity of the word without explaining its meaning?

“If you were at school and said that word, you would be sent to the principal’s office,” I told Girl. “And you’d have to flip your card to red,” the worst conduct grade there is, an unimaginable consequence for Girl, who’s been on green every day of kindergarten so far.

In “A Christmas Story,” which we just watched, Ralphie is punished with a bar of Lifebuoy soap in his mouth for saying the f-word. I don’t think I could even squirt a little body wash on Girl’s tongue — it seems a tad Medieval to me.

Like Ralphie, I’m sure Girl picked up that word from home, even though we try hard not to swear in front of the kids. But apparently, not hard enough. The thing is, she said the f-word just like I do, accentuating the hard “k” at the end. And for the same reason — when you want to punch someone in the face, but can’t.

Girl lost her first tooth tonight. And by lost, I really mean lost. It was hanging by a thread all day, and I should have just yanked it out, but I didn’t. She went to a princess party tonight with her best friend at a dance studio. And when I went to pick her up, I had one really sad princess on my hands.

“I lost my tooooooth,” she wailed. “I can’t find it!” Everyone in the dance studio had been looking for Girl’s tooth, but no luck. White floors, white walls, dozens of girl feet shuffling around — it could be anywhere. Girl calmed down enough to do her routine for the parents, but her heart wasn’t into it. Her mind was on her tooth.

Somehow she got the idea that we should look for it at home. “Maybe it’s in your tutu,” her friend suggested. Which gave me an idea.

You see, I know where the tooth fairy hides her stash of teeth. Yes, this was Girl’s first tooth. But I know where the old Boy teeth are.

So when we got home, I went into the special little drawer on my dresser where the ultra-sound pictures and baby teeth live. And I found a tooth in a baggy that could pass for a tiny bottom tooth. Man do teeth look dried up after three years.

As I helped Girl squeeze out of her too-tight tutu, I dug my hand into my pocket and grabbed the tiny tooth, then hid it in the bathroom rug. “Hey what’s that?” I asked. “MY TOOTH!!!” Girl cried, then ran off to tell everybody.

All I can say is, it’s a big world. There’s got to be somebody else besides Girl tonight sleeping with a used tooth under her pillow.

2009

Problem: Girl wakes up in the middle of the night screaming that her stomach hurts.

Solution: I call the nurse at the pediatrician’s office to ask what kind of medicine to give her. I’m pretty sure she needs a laxative, but I don’t know which one is safe for a 5-year-old. The nurse says, “With abdominal pain, you need to take her to the emergency room,” so I do, choosing the closet one with the smallest chance of a gunshot wound victim sitting next to my kids.

At the ER, I tell the nurse on duty, “I think she needs a laxative,” but the nurse says they need to check for appendicitis or anything else that may need surgery. She orders a blood test and urinalysis. After two hours (it’s now 2:30 a.m.), the doctor says Girl is fine and can go home. I say, “But she’s in pain. Can you give her anything?” So they do: a little shot of morphine.

The next day, I take Girl to our regular pediatrician. I say, “I think she needs a laxative.” The pediatrician says, “Yes, but we need to check for bacteria and parasites,” so she orders another blood test, another urinalysis, a stool sample (which I get to collect), an upper GI and an ultrasound.

Before Girl and I can complete all these tests, the results of the x-ray confirm what I have known all along: Girl needs a laxative. The pediatrician’s nurse calls with the answer I had been asking for: “Miralax.”

1969

Problem: I wake up screaming in the middle of the night that my stomach hurts.

Solution: Castoria. And if that didn’t work, enema.

Post script: On the one hand, I feel personally responsible for the current high cost of healthcare in the United States. On the other hand, the 1969 ultimate remedy seemed like one step better than leeches.

Post script 2: The pediatrician’s nurse just called again. Another test came back. Girl has giardiasis, an infection caused by drinking bad water. Where she got the bad water, I don’t know. I hope it wasn’t out of our faucets. I have to admit that this problem probably would not have happened to me in 1969: we had awesome well water. God knows where our city water is coming from now. And no more Miralax — Girl needs stiff antibiotics now.

Post script 3: Thanks, Doc, for not jumping to my conclusions.

Yesterday Girl found a pretty green notepad with a “D” on it, sitting on my dresser.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Oh,” I said, “it’s a notepad I bought for Aunt Dora, but I didn’t get a chance to give it to her. Do you want it?”

Of course she did. She’ll write on anything that isn’t nailed down.

Aunt Dora passed away in June. For a while, whenever I woke in the middle of the night, the thought “Aunt Dora is dead,” would involuntarily pop into my mind, as if my subconsious were grappling with the hard concept. Only recently has this stopped.

Girl doodled on that notepad for hours. On the first page, she drew a picture of Aunt Dora, but it looked as if she had four legs. Girl explained to me that that was her walker.

Then, on the next dozen or so pages, she wrote sentences all beginning with “Aunt Dora is.” In her best kindergarten phonetics, she wrote, “Aunt Dora is a special person.” “Aunt Dora is a great aunt.” “Aunt Dora is the best person in the world.”

She kept wanting my help. “What else should I put?” she kept asking me.

I didn’t know what to say. I got tripped up on the word “is.” Did Girl realize Aunt Dora is gone? Would she ask me when we can visit her again?

I didn’t remind Girl that Aunt Dora is in heaven. Maybe the next time I wake up in the middle of the night, I won’t think “Aunt Dora is dead.” I’ll just think, “Aunt Dora is.”