Tooth Fairy

By Megan

So, we have a loose tooth in the household. It’s our first, and I discovered it a little over a week ago upon taking a closer look at a tooth that appeared to be getting crookeder and crookeder by the day. Turns out there was good reason for all the crookedness – that tooth is hanging in there by a thread. It’s an important milestone – one I romantically looked forward to celebrating with her since the day that tiny tooth first made its appearance, when Bean was about 7 months old.

Still it took me by surprise. It’d occurred to me occasionally over the course of the past two years, as kids close to Bean’s age lost teeth, that this day would come, and I should probably start dreaming up how I wanted to approach the whole Tooth Fairy thing with our children, but as soon as that little gap in someone else’s child’s smile was out of my eyesight, I’d forget all about it. Now I suppose it’s undeniably time for me to get on the Tooth Fairy ball.

Somewhat complicating the matter is the fact that my daughter has actually met the Tooth Fairy. She’s visited Bean’s preschool class two years running, and she is QUITE A WOMAN. She wears a big, poofy pink tulle dress with a matching satin bow the size of Texas above her behind, carries a sparkly magic wand with trailing iridescent plastic ribbons and drives a green Ford Expedition with leather interior. We accidentally ran into her as she was hitching up that pink poofy skirt and hoisting herself up behind the wheel in the pre-school parking lot. She drinks Diet Dr. Pepper and smokes, wears black wedge-heeled flip-flops and could use a pedicure.

Frankly, I’m kinda stymied about what to do with that particular persona, now that it’s been assigned to the Tooth Fairy for Bean by default. I didn’t have a firm idea yet of who she’d be around here, but I liked the idea of “designing her” myself, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have arrived at this particular iteration on my own. I may have come up with someone a little frilly, a tad sparkly, but offset the pinkness and the iridescence with some metal and hi-tech gadgetry so that she’d be exciting and relatable for Peabody when his turn rolled around. Like maybe she’d wear a poofy dress, but she’d drive around in a black Porsche 911 and carry a cool light saber instead of Disney Princess wand.

Bean seems to have no interest at all in actually LOSING her loose tooth. I can’t decide if I should intervene and show her what to do or just let her figure it out on her own. Seems like I never had to be told – I just instinctively pulled, pushed, twisted and wiggled without letting up until each of my teeth was out. I guess I won’t worry about it, because at least her disinterest buys me some time to come up with a household Tooth Fairy plan.

First step, procure an empty DP can and a few cigarette butts to leave on the front porch.

This is SO not turning out to be what I thought it’d be.

Megan also blogs at FriedOkra.