Back in September Miss L lost her first tooth. Miss L was playing with some plastic bracelet and put it in her mouth like a dog. She got up to go do something in the bathroom when she tasted something, looked in the mirror, and blurted out her tooth was gone. But she didn't know where the tooth was! She was SO excited and SO scared all at the same time. It was not what she thought losing a tooth would feel like. Apparently Mom and Dad forgot to mention that there might be some blood. Whoops! Anyway, I retraced some footsteps and found her tooth in the living room where she had been playing. YAY, Mom! While we don't play the Santa "game" we have decided to play the Tooth Fairy game -- still not sure how I feel about it but whatever. She got $5 for the first lost tooth.
A week later, to the day, she lost her second tooth.
Not such a great story. We had just finished swim lessons for the evening and as per tradition for this particular summer of lessons we head to Chick-fil-a for dinner as a family... grandparents, too. Miss L traded in her toy from the kids meal for an ice cream cone. She had been working on it for a bit and decided to share with Daddy. I suddenly pulled the cone away from Husband because something looked funny. Sure enough once I got the cone closer for inspection and then looked at Miss L she had lost the tooth! Unfortunately, it was no where to be found. (I think she swallowed it) Even our favorite CFA employee pulled out a flashlight (on his smartphone) and helped us look all around under the table and booth. Nothing. Miss L was devastated. She wondered how the tooth fairy would find her. We told her that Daddy had a special number to call. Also, we had just read a Curious George book that talked about how lights would light up on firefighters maps (back in the day) from where the call came from or where the fire was. I told her that when a child loses a tooth the tooth fairy gets a message about a tooth being gone, etc. The tooth fairy made her appearance and left her two gold dollar coins. A little extra for the trauma.
Later we found out that Miss L had to have two teeth removed to help with the crowding issue in her mouth. While it won't fix her orthodontic issues by any means it did help it a little. Miss L received two 50-cent pieces for her teeth.
All of this reminds be of the great lengths in which my own dad did the tooth fairy (and Santa). While we don't want to go to such extremes with our kids it did bring me some happy memories. My dad would have the ladies in the office at his work pen well thought out letters from the tooth fairy as I left her questions about her age and other such things that young minds inquire about. But I also remember that I was usually left random denomination of money. Things like the $2 bill, one dollar coins, 50-cent pieces. I think that also helped me save the money, too. They were so unique that I didn't want to spend them. So, while the extravagant stories will not continue on with our children I think that the rare denominations of money will. Although, we know that the $5 is not rare we just wanted the first to be fun and special.
