Loose Teeth and Fake Fairies

Big weekend for the Allain household, and no I’m not talking about my first assigned writing piece getting front page love from The Daily Beast.

On Friday night Parker lost one of his front teeth!

Let’s go to the video

Going through the whole Tooth Fairy routine this weekend reminded me of a few thoughts I needed to share.

1. It is actually fun to lie to your kids – We don’t do the whole Santa Claus thing because neither of us grew up with it. So the Tooth Fairy is the only pretend being we try to pass off as real to our kids. (All my athiest readers are shouting “How about God!” at their screens right now. Settle down, atheist readers, no need to shout.)

My kids are 99.8% sure that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t exist, but I still haven’t cracked and given in yet. It’s kind of fun to hold it over them and toy with their perception of reality.

2. The tooth exchange is surprisingly nerve-racking – Even if they’ve been sleeping for a few hours, even if I can make the switch in 10 seconds, even if it’s super dark in the room, I’m still petrified of them waking up while I’m doing the exchange and catching me in the act.

I make sure they put the tooth in a plastic baggy before it goes under the pillow so I can find it easier, but it’s still tricky. You’ve got to exchange the baggy for a buck without waking them up. Because if they catch you doing it, you’re never gonna hear the end of it. (Has this happened to anyone out there? I’d love to hear about it.)

3. Forgetting to make the exchange makes for an awful morning – Last year I completely spaced out on making the exchange for Parker’s second lost tooth. He came downstairs when he woke up looking like his world had just collapsed.

I think I came up with some story about how when the Tooth Fairy forgets a house, she usually feels bad and bring twice the money the next night. Hey, might as well start teaching the kids now that throwing more money at a problem makes it go away in case they ever want to go into politics.

4. Your kid gets a new face – Especially great if it’s one of their front teeth. Then you get a slightly different voice too.

5. Giving the tooth back is a whole other story – So the kids want their teeth  back to add them to their teeth collection. But the tooth fairy has them. What to do? Concoct an elaborate story about how I got the tooth back from the fairy?

Not really.

I just tell them that after the tooth fairy makes the exchange she drops the tooth off in my closet. I mean, what else was she supposed to do with it?

What about you: Any stories from childhood or parenting involving losing teeth?

Were you one of those kids who tried to yank the sucker out way before it was ready or did you wait until it was hanging by one strand of gum tissue before pulling it out?