Last year was a rough year for Abby in the tooth department. If there is such a department!
Her first grade class had a chart where they kept track of how many teeth each student lost and Abby’s name never got a check mark beside it. She bemoaned her bad fortune to me quite frequently and the peer pressure was so great that she would even work on wiggling several of her teeth to try to get even just one to be loose!
But no such luck.
In fact for months now she’s had several “loose” teeth. Until yesterday after school when she walked in the door and said, “Mom, look at my loose tooth!”. I did the “mom routine” and briefly glanced while smiling and nodding and sweetly saying, “Wow, Sweetie! I see!”.
But this time I did a double take.
“Wow Abby! That IS really loose!” I said in surprise. After all our false alarms I was taken aback by this really loose tooth. I figured in a few days we would finally see it fall out.
Oh, was I wrong!
Last night we were sitting at the table, quietly and calmly eating our dinner when Abby jumped of from her chair and exclaimed quite loudly, “My tooth! Where’s my tooth? Did you see my tooth? Where did it go?”
After some investigation we concluded that she had swallowed it while eating her broccoli! I laughed! But it wasn’t a laughing moment for her. Finally after literally years of waiting and she looses her first tooth only to swallow it! However, the excitement of loosing a tooth finally set in and all was okay once more.
But then came the question, “Will the Tooth Fairy still come even though I swallowed it?”
We – or better yet, I – assured her that I was pretty sure the tooth fairy would come despite there being no tooth but rather that I was more concerned about whether the Tooth Fairy would be able to fly in since the weather wasn’t the best!
I know, I know! I should have been more compassionate….but I just had to have fun with it!
She promptly called her Grandpa, who is avid at keeping up on the weather, to see what his opinion was! Then she asked me, “Mom, is the Tooth Fairy real or is it just you, ‘cause you’ve been telling me funny stuff about her?!”
That was a fun question to answer. I sort of didn’t answer. I didn’t say she wasn’t real, but I would not tell her she was either.
So anyhow, last night I tucked a $1 bill under her pillow after she finally fell asleep.
Then! Here comes the funny part…
This morning she wakes up and shows me a note she had left for the Tooth Fairy – the note that the *ahem* Tooth Fairy didn’t see last night!
It read:
“I swol (swallowed) it. I am sorry that I swol it. Will you forgive me and please may you give me a doller (dollar) please?”
Well, it’s a good thing that by chance the *ahem* Tooth Fairy gave her a dollar!
From the trenches of motherhood….where I’m thanking God that He had me put a $1 under a little girl’s pillow…
-Mandy the TrenchMommy
