HEY LOOK WHO LOST HIS FIRST TOOTH!!
Yeah, this guy. Who now has the cutest toothless grin I ever saw.
His left front tooth started getting a little wobbly in school 2 days ago and he came home looking mighty proud of it, like “mom, look at my tooth it’s so gross”. And it was really gross, like some parts were dislodged while other parts were still dangling from the gums and I could see bits of gum flesh. Why are boys so fascinated with grossness?
I offered to yank it out but I immediately regretted my offer because ewww. It’s a good thing he objected violently to my suggestion anyway.
Then yesterday, while he was at my in-law’s place, the tooth did us all a favour and fell out on its own. Sort of. I asked him how it happened and he said there was a hair that got into his mouth (how??) which he couldn’t get out (why??) so he started rubbing his mouth and teeth (why would this work??) and next thing he knew, the tooth was in his hand (not sure what became of the offending hair but I didn’t ask). There was a bit of bleeding but apparently it didn’t hurt much so all things considered, it’s a yay, question mark?
I’m new to this whole tooth falling out territory but we wanted to make it special for him so I thought maybe we’d go all the way with the tooth fairy story and see where that takes us.
I told him to put the tooth under his pillow and at night while he slept, a tooth fairy will come and replace it with money. His eyes opened wide for just a moment and he was like “Really?? you mean…” then his voice trailed off as he realised the implausibility of it all.
But I was determined to give it a shot at least so I played along and wrote him a note from the tooth fairy while he slept. Not quite sure what the going rate for a tooth is these days so we settled on $2 and a coupon for an hour’s worth of PS3 gaming.
Two things about this tooth fairy business. 1. Putting a tooth under one’s pillow is borderline gross and unhygienic. 2. It’s impossible to locate a tiny tooth under a pillow in the dark, especially if the tooth shifted during the night and dropped under the bed.
After he fell asleep, I went in with my little fairy note and my iPhone torch to make the swap but his tooth was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t under his pillow or around his bed or in his hands. On retrospect, I should have put it into a pouch instead but these are the mistakes a rookie tooth fairy mom makes, we live and learn. I spent 5 minutes feeling around his bed looking for a tiny gross tooth in semi-darkness until he started stirring and I figured it’d be embarrassing to be caught in the act of pretending to be the tooth fairy. No tooth to be found but I decided to leave the note and money anyway.
This morning, I woke up to the happiest little toothless boy. “LOOK LOOK LOOK! THE TOOTH FAIRY CAME!!”
I gave him a giant hug and he whispered “Actually I know it’s you, thanks mom! Also, you forgot to take my tooth, it’s right here.”
Tooth fairy mission: FAIL.
Mommy mission: SMASHING SUCCESS.
