My daughter lost her first tooth this week. In our house, the first tooth gets $5. After that, I can’t remember. (So let’s hope no one else can.) Clearly, the first one is really exciting – for many reasons – the money, the fame, the gory details, and the mini fairy who comes into your room at night, reaching under your pillow and trading tooth for treasure. Not scary at all because we love Tinkerbelle and she must be a cousin.
That night my daughter laid out a plate for the Tooth Fairy – full of hand sanitizer in case she wanted to take a bath — and propped an iPad next to her pillow to take a picture of her fluttery friend mid tooth-exchange. Lying in my daughter’s bed that night with her tooth under the pillow beneath us, we discussed the intricacies and career path of tooth fairies.
Here are some of her thoughts:
- What does the Tooth Fairy do with the teeth?
- How does she make money if she always gives money away?
- Do they sell the teeth to make more money to buy more teeth?
- Who would buy baby teeth? Babies who want to look older??!!!
- Nana said she needs teeth. Maybe she buys from the tooth fairy.
- I think there are many tooth fairies who work for one big tooth fairy.
- It could also be a boy tooth fairy. Just because it’s a fairy doesn’t mean it’s a girl.
- But mine is a girl.
- I think she’s probably the size of a hummingbird. And she flies super-fast in and out of the house.
- She probably knows Peter Pan.
- But where does she keep the money – and the teeth?
- Maybe she’s human-sized with humming bird speed.
- Why does Sienna get a gold coin from the tooth fairy and I get money?
- I’m SO going to catch her on my camera and show all my friends a picture of the REAL TOOTH FAIRY!
- I can’t wait to lose more teeth.
Meanwhile my brain is thinking:
- Do I have $5 in my wallet right now?
- Am I going to have to take money out of her piggy bank to pay for this?
- My daughter has decided the tooth fairy is a tooth-hustling pimp.
- Who thought of this ridiculous fairy flying into the house with cash-for-teeth idea?
- Once she learns this isn’t real, will she realize Santa and the Easter Bunny aren’t as well? Is this one huge blow to the childhood imagination – or a slow, repetitive let down? Read my frustration with the Santa facade.
- WHY do we do these things???!!
- Is the Tooth Fairy an economics lesson failure — in which kids literally get money for not doing anything? What is this teaching them — Money comes from the sky?
- Ugh, this camera. Does she really think she’s going to wake up, turn the camera on, line up a good shot and click??
- Thank god we don’t have a nanny cam or I’d be dressing as a fairy tonight!
- If she doesn’t catch the fairy, she’s going to be super disappointed. If she sees that I’m the tooth fairy, she’s going to be ridiculously disappointed.
- Maybe the neighbors have change for a $20.
- I sorta hope she catches her fairy!
No fairies were caught that night. Instead, my daughter awoke to $5 under her pillow (after I foraged for small bills at the neighbors’) and some clues that the fairy took a bath in hand-sanitizer. She didn’t even seem to care that she didn’t catch the fairy on her cam, or didn’t wake up to see her in person, and she plans to buy a puppy with the loot she earns.
Meanwhile, she can be found in her room trying to pull out more teeth. #EasyMoney #WillPullTeethforPuppies
So, tell me, how much do you pay for teeth? And do you have any tooth fairy stories to share?
