Hello, Tooth Fairy

A new role has been assigned in our family play. "Tooth Fairy" made a scene entrance over the weekend; and the suddenness of this addition made both Dan and I scramble to the call of duty.

We knew that Ashlyn had a loose tooth. Although, "loose" is probably a generous word for the ever so slight movement that we saw with it. Looking forward to that first gap, I took the girls shopping for material from which to make their Tooth Fair pillows. I then promptly put the material and ribbon away. It wasn't that loose, after all.

Days turned to weeks and the tooth didn't seem to be any looser. Then on Saturday night, as we were eating dinner (Chinese) with Dan's mom and dad, Ashlyn came up to me and said, "Mama, there's something in my tooth". I turned to her, expecting to see something caught in her teeth that she wanted some help with, but instead I saw a gap where her tooth had been. I gasped, and she jumped backwards, a little afraid. I tempered my response and told her that she'd lost her tooth. She smiled and started feeling the new vacancy in her mouth.

Now to find it. She didn't think she'd swallowed it, and she seemed to be unsure of what she was eating when she felt the weird feeling. First she thought it was the egg roll, (which we tore apart to no avail), later she guessed the chicken, (but dissection of that yielded no white gem). That left the scattered piles of rice on her plate. Dan's mom and I searched the floor, sifting through the normal stuff they like to toss there during a dinner that includes rice; and picked through each grain on her plate. WHY rice? Why did we have to have rice this night? I refused to give up, lost already at the thought of that first precious tooth might be lost to me forever. As the mom, I wanted to hold it, cherish it, KEEP IT. Good grief, where was the dang thing?

After some very tense minutes of searching I found it. I uttered a call of total triumph and felt victorious all over. (Incidentally, it was buried amidst that piles of rice).

Kathleen and I quickly devised the pillows and sewed them together, to the joy of both girls. That night Ashlyn went to sleep with a lump under her pillow, and a million questions in her head. "Will I see the Tooth Fairy? Will she wake me up? What does she DO with my tooth? Will she give it back later? Will she leave me money?"

Several hours later, the "Tooth Fairy", in a joint portrayal by both Dan and I, snuck in and made the switch. In the morning we had one mystified and happy little girl. And I had a precious piece of history tucked in my jewelry box.