Josie lost her first tooth. That means we experienced our last first lost tooth. Kind of sad. Lots of lasts coming our way.
Every parent knows that losing teeth means losing money, by way of the tooth fairy. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of this made up fairy who, by the way, Josie thinks is a guy thanks to the movie where The Rock portrays the tooth fairy. I just think the whole thing is weird. Teeth are gross and should be immediately disposed of the second they become detached from a human. I’ve never saved any of our kids baby teeth and I’m not about to start now.
After many tears and the slightest amount of blood, Josie’s first little baby tooth finally fell out. Better yet, this tooth was shoved out by her grown-up tooth which is two times bigger than it’s predecessor. She was overjoyed until she found out that our tooth fairy only leaves 50 cents instead of dollars. She, I mean he, is such a cheap skate.
Josie carefully cut up a plastic bag, placed her tooth in it and taped it up. It was the weekend so the kids all camped out in our family room which is the usual weekend routine. What Josie failed to tell me was that she put her tooth under her pillow in her bedroom, instead of the pillow she was sleeping on.
None of that mattered anyway because like thousands of other parents have done time and time again, I forgot. Josie came upstairs the next morning, climbed in bed and this sad conversation took place.
“Good morning, sweetie. How did you sleep?” I greeted her, clueless to my huge mistake.
“Well, I slept good, but I’m a little sad.”
“Why are you sad?” Still hadn’t figured out what I’d done, till she dropped the bomb.
“I looked under my pillow and my tooth is still there. No money, but just my tooth.” Saddest little face ever.
I did what every normal parent would do. Made up some ridiculous excuse as to what could have happened. We never had to deal with this with the boys. They didn’t care. Tooth fell out, they handed it to us and we handed over a whole 50 cents. Just a simple transaction. Sometimes the transaction took place under the pillow, sometimes not.
“Oh, you know that sometimes the tooth fairy forgets? She gets so busy with so many other kids losing teeth. But I’m sure she’ll remember tomorrow morning. Are you sure you looked really good?” I threw that last question in there with the hopes that I might secretly throw some quarters under there when she wasn’t looking.
“You mean he. You forgot that the tooth fairy is a he. And yes, I looked really good.”
I felt like such a jerk. It gets worse. When she wasn’t looking a grabbed two quarters and looked under the pillow she slept on in the family room. No tooth, but like an idiot, I decided to leave the quarters there and act like she just missed them.
“Josie, look! Look what I found under your pillow! You must have missed it when you looked earlier.”
“Uh, Mommy, I didn’t put my tooth under that pillow. I put it under my pillow on my bed in my room.”
“Oh…uh, that’s weird. So, these quarters must have just fell out of someone’s pocket or something. That’s strange.” Oh geez. If I were still catholic, I’d be headed straight to confession right about now.
Now I was just straight pathetic. I went to her room, found her gross little tooth, placed that lousy 50 cents under her pillow and didn’t say another word about it.
Ten minutes later I heard some quarters dropping into Josie’s piggy bank. I was too ashamed to say anything at all, but when I walked by her room she looked up at me and said, “Well, I guess the tooth fairy came late. At least he gave me some quarters.” She smiled and went about her business. I walked away praying that the tooth fairy can redeem herself, I mean himself, with the next tooth. That tooth is getting pretty wiggly…
