When my son Ford's front tooth was loose and dangled from his gums like a giant chicklet attached to several strings, I decided that someone -- namely, me -- needed to intervene. I consulted wikiHow for advice. Here's what I found:

"Pulling teeth, called tooth extraction by dental professionals, is not something that can be done without dental training ... [it is] a form of surgery, and like any other surgical procedure, extraction requires specialized tools, medical training, anesthesia and often sutures."

The bad news is that I'm not a medical doctor. The good news is that this wasn't the last thing wikiHow had to say about tooth extraction. Despite those ominous warnings, wikiHow went on to say that there are, however, "cases where you may consider pulling out a tooth at home." All you need is dental floss, a door knob and thick towels to stop the bleeding.

When Ford heard this, he ran into the bathroom and shut the door. "No one is touching my tooth," he said.

But wikiHow said it would be painless if I carefully looped a piece of floss around the wiggly tooth -- trying not to "cause too much pain," because if I did, the website suggested that I "stop and go to the dentist" -- and tie the end securely to the knob of a door. "Slam the door closed," wikiHow instructed. And if there is pain or bleeding, "take your child to an emergency [room] and tell them what you've done."

Now I was scared, too. Couldn't I say that Dustin had done it instead?

"No way, no how," Ford yelled.

That night, as I was going to bed and thinking about Ford's still "intact" tooth and his annoying habit of flicking it around with his tongue, wikiHow's unsettling advice reminded me, oddly, of our old dog Annie's electrical fence. Annie is a border Collie. You might remember her from the column where I described her running through the front yard with not just a stick, but a full tree (roots and all) in her mouth, or the time she ate a piece off the metal Brinks Protection sign in our grass. Annie seldom behaved without the use of electricity applied to her neck. This upset me, so Annie now lives on a fenceless 13-acre farm in Alabama. When Annie was with us, however, and the shock collar was our most effective means of controlling her, Dustin and I were bothered by the collar's instructions, which warned against turning the dial that selects shock intensity to Level 10 without calling a 24-hour hotline first. This reminded us of signs on a bridge that tell you to "call before you jump." The number 10 on the collar's control was even bright red.

Remembering that made me shudder in my bed. Then I thought about a user's comment on wikiHow that suggested if a parent removed a child's tooth with floss and a door knob, someone should remove the child from the parent.

It was settled. Ford's tooth would stay, until his tongue flicked it one last time, knocking it off the fiber that held it to the gum. It didn't matter if that wasn't until he was 21-years old. I sure as heck wasn't going to pull his tooth for him.

At the same time that Ford was losing his front tooth, our youngest son, Lindell (19 months old), was beginning to take his first steps. But he was still too afraid to walk alone.

"When you learn to walk," Ford told him, "I'll rip out this tooth."

Twelve hours later, Lindell got up and walked across his grandmother's living room.

"I know I'm going to regret this," Ford said. Then, before any of us could stop him, he reached into his mouth, yanked out his front tooth and tossed it onto the kitchen table.

"There," he said. Then a he smiled. That's when the blood started pouring down his chin and onto the floor.

"He looks like he's been in a fight," Dustin said.

"Take a picture, Mom! Take a picture!" the boys yelled.

So I did. Then I sent it by e-mail to our family. Only I didn't realize until it was too late that when I typed my brother's name into the address field, the computer automatically (and wrongly) completed the address with that of my editor's. I had just sent my boss a horrific picture of my son with blood going down his chin and the caption: "He finally did it."

There are many lessons to be learned here, but mostly, I hope you leave with these: (1) There are worse things (like tying your child's tooth to a door) than using a shock collar on your dog, and (2) always double check the e-mail addresses before you hit Send.