Dear Tooth Fairy, Please Go The Hell Away

Two weeks ago, baby boy lost his first tooth, a momentous occasion in any child's life. I was actually the one to tell him he had a loose tooth when he smiled and his tooth looked like it was laying sideways. Once he knew, however, he wouldn't leave that sucker alone (typical boy!) until one day he came home from school with a plastic tooth shaped necklace. I said, "Oh, it finally fell out at school?" He replied, "No, I twisted it."

Oh, he's one of those kids then. My daughter was the type of child that would wiggle it unless there was any sort of pain involved and there was no way she was yanking it out until it plopped out all by itself. I was always afraid she was going to end up eating it with her dinner one night. Of course, she would also whine if she bit into dinner and it hurt, but she was absolutely leaving it in her gums until it finally cried uncle and gave up and jumped out.

If you're like me, you're probably wondering what the tooth fairy's going rate is these days. I've read stories about kids getting 20, 50, or 100 bucks for a tooth. Uh, no, not in this house. The tooth fairy respects our middle class budget. She leaves $5 for the first tooth (that one is special to her for some reason) and 2 or 3 dollars for any successive teeth. The amount varies because in this digital age, the tooth fairy uses her debit card for everything and hardly carries cash except when she needs it. (You'd think, with her profession, she's have an emergency stash for tooth collection!) Sometimes that $2.00 is made up from couch coins, lone singles found in a back pocket, and dryer lint but she always gets the job done.

Two days after losing his first tooth, baby boy informs me that the one right next to it is loose too! Awesome! A two-fer in one week! He's thrilled to finally have a steady source of income all by giving up his old teeth which, face it, aren't much use to him once they fall out anyway. (Since this is the kid who loves to buy things, hubby and I hid all the pliers just in case he gets any bright ideas.) Now that he's an old pro, this one didn't even last half the time the first one did and he came home with another tooth necklace from school.

He looks adorable with his bottom two front teeth missing though. It's too bad it wasn't a few more months away and we could teach him the song, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth". Until he tells me that the one next to that one is now loose too. (I admit, it gave me a mental image of him doing daily teeth checks for any sort of give among his firmly planted teeth. And maybe wiggling until there is some.)

Now all I have to say is, "WTF tooth fairy?" (And if you don't know what WTF stands for, it's: What the fudgecicles?!) Don't you have a kid in Argentina or Texas or Beijing who's awaiting a visit from you? You're starting to become such a frequent visitor that we've debated setting a place at the table for you. There are other children in the world, so go harass their parents, I mean, those children.

He needs some teeth to be able to eat. I hear pureed lasagna doesn't taste that good.