Tooth Fairies and Expectations

Happy New Year!  O rang in the new year by loosing her first tooth.  

Three weeks ago O excitedly shared that her bottom front right tooth was loose.  Due to the fact that I share a lot with you, O has begun to clue in to the fact that the blog includes a lot about her.  And because some of you are more local and vocal, she has heard comments about events in the blog that people would not know about unless they were there at the time.  As such, she now makes me "pinky promise" that I won't tell ANYONE about this or that, let alone write about it.  

O was very selective about who she shared the news of her loose tooth with (and my lips were sealed after pinky promising on my life) but the more people she told, the more it seemed the entire world was getting excited.  

Her teacher, Mrs. M gave her a plastic tooth necklace with a locket so she would have something to put it in when it fell out.  We also gave her a large plastic glow in the dark tooth fairy box which served two purposes.  First, to keep her discarded teeth in (just like her grandparents).  Second, something that would be easily found by the tooth fairy.

Then it happened! New Year's Day.  She was drawing a picture while wiggling her loose tooth with her tongue.  It started to bleed.  She ran to the mirror to check it out and started to cry at the sight of seeing the blood inside her mouth.  In order to try to stop the bleeding, I held a Kleenex against the tooth and somehow it came out in the Kleenex.  She then went back to the mirror where she watched it bleed with a smile on her face.  This time she appeared less concerned about the blood and more excited about the space where her tooth used to be.  She repetitively kept looking in the mirror and then at her tooth.  It was all so magical. 

The first thing she said after staring at it in the mirror with her daddy was, "We have got to tell Nana."  To which daddy replied, "OK, let's call her."  O responded, "No, let's skype her so she can see the space between my teeth."  Ten minutes later we were skyping the news to the grandparents who were thrilled, to say the least.  Then we called the non-skyping side of the family.

That night she placed her tooth under her pillow in the fancy tooth box with a note that read:

to tHe tootH FAiRy

Win u cum For A Vist

PLEs Willl u lev MY tootH?

Fel FRee to leV PRiS

LOVE O

So much for a plastic tooth box.  It kept slipping out when she lay on the pillow and the glow from the box kept causing her to refocus her eyes to the light in the dark.  (Probably the reason why I had a tooth pillow.  What was I thinking?)  It took her awhile to fall asleep from the excitement she was feeling about the possibility of a fairy flying into her room in the middle of the night.

A couple hours after she fell asleep the "tooth fairies" began to search for money to leave under her pillow.  Her daddy tooth fairy only had a twenty dollar bill in his wallet so he went in and placed that in the box under her pillow.  The mommy tooth fairy kept searching.  Seriously, what do you do when it's 10:00 pm and you are without cash?  It seriously ran through my mind to call a neighbor or better yet post it to the neighborhood list serve.  

When daddy tooth fairy told mommy tooth fairy what he did, mommy tooth fairy went to bed and had a nightmare about all her parents friends’ reactions if O told everyone that she got a twenty dollar bill from the tooth fairy.  Mommy tooth fairy awoke to tell daddy tooth fairy to look in one undisclosed money location and switch out the twenty dollar bill with anything lower.  He found a five dollar bill.  It's better than twenty! (well, maybe not at Nordstrom, but that's beside the point).  After all, as time goes on, twenty dollars a tooth is going to get costly and we don't even know if she will need braces or any other dental surgery (I fear the Irish in her).

The next day O awoke to find the tooth fairy had come.  "Mommy, she left my tooth and a green piece of paper with a five on it..."  Her voice trailed off.  When I came into her room she was looking under her bed.  She had ripped off all the covers and pillow cases.  She was searching for a note from the fairy.  UHOH!  Seriously, this fairy work is tough stuff.  

When her two friends, Lina and Mimi arrived for a play date, she took them up to her room and while pointing to her mouth she said, "Guys, I have something to show you.  Look!"  These two friends jumped up and down in excitement all the while asking what the tooth fairy brought her.  She showed them that too.  

This led to some wonderful conversation where Lina and Mimi shared that one time Lina got a gold coin cause they were vacationing with their grandma in Maine and the tooth fairy there is different than their tooth fairy in Virginia (Virginia being a Right to Work state and all).  Another time, their older brother got raisins because at the time, he didn’t believe in the tooth fairy.  

O's tooth out of her mouth must return it this instant!  O and her friends giggled.  Kay asked, "What did the tooth fairy bring you?"  O answered, "A green paper with a five on it" then adding her disappointment, "but she didn't leave a note."  Kindergarten SUCKS!