At Addy’s last dentist visit we were told that it wouldn’t be too much longer until one of her bottom teeth fell out. While Brownlee and I debated whether or not we were going to deal with the Tooth Fairy, Addy proceeded to give us the full Tooth Fairy run down. Her tooth falls out, she puts it under the pillow, the Tooth Fairy comes and takes it and she gets a dollar.
Fine I guess we’re going to do the Tooth Fairy.
As with a lot of parenting traditions, I just do not get the Tooth Fairy. Why is she collecting teeth? Why do you get money from it? Why the pillow? Where did this come from? It makes less sense than Santa.
Then she started to wiggle the tooth with her tongue. Totally normal. But she started to worry that the tooth falling out was going to hurt because her gums were so irritated. The next day we opted for Wednesday ice cream instead of waiting for Friday and as soon as she bit into her cone her tooth came out.
Then we realized we never discussed how much the Tooth Fairy is supposed to bring. I took to Facebook to ask. I got a range of answers between $1 and $5 but we were reduced to cash on hand, which was a $5 and a $1. We ended up settling on a $2 fee. Where’d we get the other dollar? Addy’s piggy bank. (Pro tip: piggy banks are a treasure trove of petty cash*)
And then at 11:30 pm she came busting into our room.
IT HAPPENED
And she was clutching the $2 in her hand and was so excited that the Tooth Fairy came and I was like “aww how cute but also it’s time to go to sleep” and also I was trying to watch Seinfeld. Either way she and her two dollars got into my bed and fell asleep. And when she woke up she had the $2 and put it into the piggy bank.
Then came the question of what to do with the teeth. WHAT DO YOU DO WITH TEETH? WHY ARE WE COLLECTING THEM? I took to Facebook, again but the answers ranged from “toss them immediately” to “my children are 30ish and I have their teeth still.”
The correct answer is to flush the tooth the next day. That’s what I did anyway.
Like most of parenting, the idea makes no sense to me but we must do it because you 1) don’t want your kid to be the weird one who doesn’t know anything or 2) the dick kid that spoils all the things.
I also took all of our change and got cash so we don’t run into the dollar problems anymore.
