Tooth Fairy

Tooth Fairy

Alyssa is hitting that oh so cute yet oh so awkward stage of the snaggle tooth smile. She has now lost 6 teeth including her two front teeth, and four bottom front teeth. Pretty much everyday, a child in her class has lost a tooth. Alyssa and her classmates have discovered that I can NOT stomach wiggly teeth. It literally makes me want to throw up when I see a kid messing with their teeth with their tongue and it hanging by a thread ( a bloody, meaty thread, oh…I am about to throw up right now). Anyway, because I positively can not handle wiggly teeth and will not Alyssa play with her teeth in front of me, it is not at all surprising that she has lost almost all of her teeth at school (there are teachers that “pluck” the teeth right out. Seriously, even typing this is making me nauseous).

Every tooth that has fallen out has pretty much led to a disaster. Alyssa lost her FIRST tooth, on her BIRTHDAY and we were beyond excited. Her Aunt and Uncle had come into town for a visit and her birthday party was the next day. We were beyond excited for her since she was one of the later ones to have lost a tooth and talked about how special it was because it happened, ON HER BIRTHDAY. So we take her out for her birthday dinner and get back home and begin to set everything out for the tooth fairy. This is a pretty big deal in the Blackwood household since she is our oldest and this was a first for us as well. So she goes to bed and I begin to visit with my in-laws while stuffing goodie bags for the next day and getting everything ready for the birthday party (alcohol may have been consumed during this time as well, however, I will plead the 5th until the day I die over this). We finish up with the birthday stuff, say good night to my in laws and go to bed. We wake up the next morning to an upset little girl who could not understand why the tooth fairy did not visit her ON HER BIRTHDAY, FOR HER FIRST TOOTH. James shoots out of bed and distracts her while I grab his wallet from the nightstand, take a bill (happened to be a 20. Was not in the situation to be able to look for a smaller denomination) and take Alyssa to her room to “look” for the missing dollar. As she pulled back her pillow, I stuffed the 20 into her pillowcase and proudly told my daughter that I found it. She looked at me skeptically, explaining that she had looked all over her bed before she came to wake us up and never found it. James and I were able to smooth it over and began explaining that she received such a LARGE dollar amount because it was her FIRST tooth, that she lost, on her BIRTHDAY!

Second tooth. Well, really, we can only go up from here. Yeah, you would think. So she loses the next tooth the next day (Thank God, so much cuter to have both missing front teeth than just one) and James and I are all about it. There is no way we can screw this up. I tell Alyssa to go put it under her pillow and begin reading to her in the living room, not paying attention to what Jimmy and his buddy are doing. Well, they get curious and want to see what this pillow thing is all about, take the tooth OUT of the little pillow and proceed to lose the tooth (no pun intended). Seriously, they lost the freakin tooth. Now, I have to calm a traumatized big sister who now thinks the Tooth Fairy is never going to visit her because she doesn’t even have a tooth to barter for the money and James and I are coming up with stories left and right. We FINALLY get her calmed down and heading off to dreamland. We have alerts going off on our phone to remind us to have the tooth fairy go and visit and double up on the efforts by having my mom and sister call me to make sure that this indeed happens. Needless to say, she woke up happy and we were able to avert crisis number 2.

This week, Alyssa lost another tooth and one of her teachers placed the tooth in the envelope to take home with her. Very considerate, thank you very much. We go about our afternoon and I call my mom and sister to remind me about the tooth fairy visit. Alyssa writes a sweet note to the tooth fairy and puts the tooth that is in the envelope under her pillow. Seems smooth enough. James and I wait about an hour until she is in a deep sleep before attempting to enter in her room. I grab a 5 out of James wallet and sneak in to her room, my heart pounding like a teenager sneaking back into their room after breaking curfew. Take a few stabilizing breaths and put my very shaky hand under her pillow. Proceed to freak out and run out of the room as soon as she stirs a little bit. James yells at me to get a grip and I go back into the room full steam ahead. Place my still shaky hand under the pillow and feel around a little bit and can’t feel the envelope. She begins to stir around a little bit more and I run, again, out of the room. Wait about 5 minutes and go back in, for the third time mind you, place my still shaking hand (I have seriously got to cut back on the caffeine) and figure out that her head is sleep directly on top of the envelope. Place the 5 dollar bill under the pillow, do not grab the envelope and go out to tell James that we are just going to have to leave the tooth. James’ response, “Oh, I will just do it!”. I silently shoot daggers into him and let him go save the day. As he goes to reach under the pillow and snag the envelope, he happens to push the 5 dollar bill towards the head of her bed which causes it to fall under her bed. Great! See, Alyssa doesn’t have a normal bed, she has a storage bed with drawers underneath the bed so you can’t just lean down and grab it from under the bed. Now James comes out all flustered and pissed and I am pissed and we now have a situation where we have the tooth but no money. Not a great exchange for Alyssa. So now we are searching high and low for another 5 dollar bill, it is 11 o’clock at night, we are pissy, exhausted and determined to not ruin another tooth fairy experience for her. James ends up finding 3 one dollar bills and places it under her pillow. She woke up happy and satisfied and then asked “how come there is no fairy dust on the dollar bills”. Ummm, excuse me, what? What are you talking about? She goes on to explain “Everybody at school says that they have fairy dust on their money, how come my dollars don’t have it?” I couldn’t even come up with a story. Just had to reply “I just don’t know honey,, honestly, I just don’t know”. Make a mental note to sprinkle fairy dust on the dollar bills for the next tooth and move on with the morning.

Well, what do you know. Alyssa comes home from school that day announcing that she has lost another tooth. Really, what are the odds (well, if you have been reading this blog, you know that that odds are pretty high considering we are talking about the Blackwood household.). We go through the entire process, AGAIN, except this time place the tooth where it belongs, in its little tooth pillow that is easy to pull in and out from under a pillow. Grab 3 one dollar bills (can not believe we actually had this on hand) and went in search for glitter. Searched and searched and searched. Pretty sure I threw anything that looked like glitter away a few months ago since that damn stuff will NEVER disappear if it gets on anything, but still searched for over an hour before I said screw it! Grab the tooth, put the money in the pocket and went to bed. Maybe next tooth we will figure it all out!