The Tooth Fairy and Our First Lost Tooth – Oh The Drama

(Photo Credit AiNatsu.deviantart.com)

The Tooth Fairy and Our First Lost Tooth – Oh The Drama 

It finally happened! Our first lost tooth! Ok, Ethan’s first lost tooth. But, with all the drama, we all certainly felt that one go! He’s been asking for months when he’ll finally start losing them. A lot of kids in his class have already come in school waving their cash, smiling with that big gaping hole in the front. And last night… we officially have the gaping holed, smiling kid too! But it certainly didn’t come without it’s fair share of drama! If he doesn’t go on to win some sort of Academy Award for best dramatic actor as an adult I’ll be shocked.  Maybe, we can write some of it off to his ‘quirks’. He’s on the  low end spectrum of Asperberger’s, has OCD and anxiety. So, a bit of drama is to be expected. But we were totally not prepared for this. And apparently, all the talking we’ve been doing about the how’s, why’s and what’s if’s didn’t prepare him either!  He couldn’t eat. Because it just hurt waaaaaay too bad. He cried. A lot. I mean, a real lot! At home, in school (his teacher finally told him to ‘cry in his head’!!) He cried and moaned in his sleep. At any random moment you could hear him yell out  ‘OOOUUUCCHHH”. Of course there was also the ‘I’m going to STAAARVEEEE because I can’t eat‘. There was some ‘I’m going to swallow it and choke to death” thrown in for good measure. This first lost tooth traumatized us all because on and on and on it went. All.Week.Long. The worst part? He refused to brush his teeth. Refused as in flat out laying on the bathroom floor, crying and screaming kind of refused. Who knew such a small person could have such awful breath!  I probably was not exactly what one would consider ‘sympathetic’ when my eye roll thing started either. Clearly he was having some sort of tragic, painful, situation which has only happened to him and no one else in the entire world. But, yes, the eye rolling thing happened too. I’ll admit, it was really bittersweet. While I watched him rehearse for Best Dramatic Actor, I also saw another scene playing in my head. The one where his tiny first tooth pooped through his sweet little baby gums. Man, they grow so fast!

The Real Deal On The Tooth Fairy & What Happens To The first Lost Tooth

When it finally fell out needless to say, we were all pretty relieved.  Being an incredibly intelligent little guy, he of course wanted to Google facts about the Tooth Fairy. How much a tooth goes for these days, what happens to your first lost tooth, and every little fairy bit of info found on the net. Off we went to fill up his smart meter. (that’s what he calls ‘learning’) I started out by asking him what he thought the Tooth Fairy looked like. Simple enough. Having an incredible imagination, he was full of such a detailed image I thought it would be better to head back over to Google and do an image search so he could show me. The picture at the top is what he decided was almost exactly what he had in his head. Something to do with ‘Rise of The Guardians’ and a 10 minute discussion that I only 1/2 caught on to. He’s way more imaginative than I am! We moved on to what she (he decided yes, it’s defiantly a she) does with all these little teeth. Apparently, she brings them back to her beautiful kingdom and builds her palace out of them. A light bulb went off in my head here for the next go-round of dramatic tooth loss. We decided she would be happier with cleaner and brighter teeth since they are used for building this magical kingdom… SCORE! Next time, he’s for sure the ‘no brushing’ thing is out. WHEW!

We’ve gone through the whole tooth fairy thing four times now with our older kids. And, learned a trick or two about digging around for a teeny, tiny tooth in the dark. We started a tradition of getting an envelope, having each kiddo write their name, date and which tooth it was (1st, 2nd, etc) on the sealed envelope and then after the switch, putting them in a keepsake box. Of course there’s some really cool ideas on pinterest for tooth fairy crafts, pillows and letters to leave for her/him you can use to start your own cool traditions!

What’s The Going Rate For Your First Lost Tooth?

I did some asking around and, my friends say the tooth fairy is handing out anywhere from $1 to $10 average per tooth! No. Our tooth fairy can’t afford that. She told me so herself. We talked it over with her and decided on a nice middle ground of $3 per tooth. Maybe, if they are amazingly sparkly and shiny, she’ll throw in an extra quarter. But $10 a tooth is just not in her budget. She said something about her ‘helper elves need to buy food and pay electric bills’ …..
Do you have any special traditions at your house? And…. what does your fairy leave behind?