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Milestone catches tooth fairy off guard
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Published: January 22, 2009
Our new year began with an expected, painful and exciting loss: our son's first tooth.
It had wiggled for a month, convincing me that Santa and the Tooth Fairy would cross paths Christmas Eve. But they missed seeing each other by one week. My son raced down the stairs one night, dabbing a paper towel to a bloody void in his mouth and holding a tiny white enameled speck in his hand, exclaiming "I loth my tooth! I loth my tooth!"
He was more excited about losing a tooth than he was about getting a sibling. The Tooth Fairy's pending arrival booted Santa's recent visit to the back of his brain. My son has been wishing for this moment since his third birthday. So my husband and I were ready.
Or were we?
I wasn't prepared for my emotions, practically grabbing the blood-speckled paper towel from his mouth to wipe my eyes as I hugged him. "Congratulations!" I exclaimed, my heart hurting the way it had when he no longer needed a baby bottle.
My husband wasn't prepared for inflation's effect on the Tooth Fairy's rates. "Do you have a quarter?" he asked. When I mentioned the gift I'd heard some Tooth Fairies were leaving, he and his bulging eyes left the room, muttering expletives.
After lassoing our son to bed, we negotiated an appropriate gift. And then realized that neither of us was prepared to play the Tooth Fairy role. It had nothing to do with emotions, but everything to do with empty wallets. We are a debit card couple, which is fine at the store, but presents a problem at 10 p.m. when we're supposed to make money magically appear under our son's pillow.
"Just borrow from her bank," I suggested, referring to the canister of cash I knew our daughter had on her dresser. A horrified look crossed my husband's face. "What do we do, leave an I.O.U. note?" he incredulously asked. "Of course not," I calmly replied. "She can't even read."
In the end we found enough change equal to the dollar figure we planned to leave, and substituted the coins for the dollar bills in our daughter's bank. She prefers the sound of money to the looks of it anyway. Our son woke me up at 6 a.m., holding his cash-filled envelope in one hand and checking for other wiggling teeth with the other.
Some words of wisdom to future Tooth Fairies: Keep cash on hand. Loose teeth don't always conveniently pop out during the day.
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