Enter Tooth Fairy

A few days ago my son told me his tooth felt "soft". He had just been to the dentist, so I assumed it wasn't rotting before our eyes. When I asked him if it felt loose or wiggly, he started testing it out and determined that very possibly he had his first loose tooth. This was quite exciting to my son since his friend had just lost her first tooth and had a great visit from the tooth fairy. He was seeing big green dollar signs.

Thus began the questions about the tooth fairy. Ugh. You have to understand that neither my husband or I grew up in families who promoted the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, or the Easter bunny. Not that they thought they were the root of all evil, they just didn't make a big deal out of any of that.

We are now realizing how much fun that can be for the kids. We have several little kid friends who are sharing their pure joy of visits from Santa, the tooth fairy, etc. However, we also have very close family members who choose not to do any of it. These cousins know that there is no Santa Claus, and that loosing teeth means you're growing up, so mom and dad celebrate with you and give money or a small gift.

Today at lunch we were talking about the tooth fairy concept with this family (minus the kids) to get their thoughts on the matter. Our kids and theirs spend time together weekly, so sometimes it's hard if we take two totally different paths on big issues. Anyway, I told my husband that we were going to need to figure out how we were steering this tooth fairy thing.

Precisely four hours later I hear my son wailing at the top of his lungs. He was 3/4 the way down the stairs and his cousin was standing at the top. His little cousin had thrown a car down the stairs and hit my son smack in the mouth. I saw blood and thought he had a fat lip. But as soon as he opened his mouth, I realized his tooth had been knocked completely out. I guess it really was loose.

The weird thing was we couldn't find his tooth ANYWHERE. I don't know what it is with this kid swallowing foreign objects, but that's the only explanation we have for the missing tooth.

Even more important than that - we now have exactly 2.4 hours to solve the tooth fairy dilemma.

(He's going to love us someday for this picture.)