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My 7-year-old shows off the gap where her tooth used to be.
How big is the tooth fairy in your house? She's a pretty big deal for my girls.
Any loose tooth is continually wiggled and waggled, and progress is measured in how horizontal the tooth can be pushed with the tongue.
Why is the tooth fairy so popular? It's simple -- money for nothing. The girls don't have to perform chores for this windfall, and birthdays and Christmas only come once a year.
Our tooth fairy forks over $1 per tooth. Almost always, it appears under the pillow in the form of a $1 coin. On one special occasion my older daughter had five teeth pulled (because they weren't falling out and her mouth was getting very crowded), and the tooth fairy rewarded her with $20 for her extra pain and suffering.
My children tell tales of friends receiving $5 or $10 per tooth, and I believe it. I've read stories,
like this one, of tooth fairies who tend to be very generous. But I'm glad my tooth fairy is a little more conservative -- who knows what length my girls would go to for some extra spending money.
About two weeks ago my 7-year-old lost a tooth, and as we prepared to put it under her pillow, it dropped off the bed. Of course a mad scramble ensued. We searched the floor, a pile of dirty clothes, a bag of doll clothes at the head of the bed -- nothing. So we pulled out the trundle bed and she crawled into the space with a flashlight in hand.
Soon she emerged victorious. But as we looked at the tooth, we both realized she was holding the wrong tooth. This was a premolar -- not the incisor that she lost. As near as we can tell, the tooth fairy must have dropped this one during a previous visit when it was her sister's room.
After another search, we finally found the missing tooth hidden in the bottom of the bag of doll clothes. As she stuck both teeth under her pillow, she asked, "Do you think the tooth fairy will give me money for both of them?" I told her it wouldn't hurt to try, and I was right.
The tooth fairy is pretty good at math. She knows that two teeth for $2 equals one happy child.
