The Tooth Fairy Wears Blue Jeans

My son - my first child - lost his top front tooth a couple of days ago. He was so proud! This is the third tooth he's lost, but the first two had permanent teeth growing in right behind...so he never really had a gap. Now, he has a great big gap, and he looks super cute! I love it! It's also a bittersweet moment, as it's just another milestone reminder that he's growing, getting bigger, and one day will leave. But thankfully, that's a few years off.

As the mom, I got the job of creating the magic of the Tooth Fairy. We set the rules with the previous visits. The Tooth Fairy promised $1 per tooth. That's pretty good, considering that when I was a kid, I got a quarter! But this night, I felt generous. He has two sisters, so I gave him $3, with instructions in a note that said he had to share $1 with each of his sisters.

My dad LOVED brand new money. The crisper, the better - but the printing had to be perfectly centered. And if you could find several in sequence, it tickled him even more! Well, I had a couple of $1 put away in his honor. Before he passed, I would have given them to him, but can't do that now! Anyway, I wanted my boy to get something a little "extra," so I gave him one of the crisp dollar bills. The Tooth Fairy tried to impress how important it was to keep that bill crisp, but I don't know that the little man understands completely.

My son is a heavy sleeper. When I walked in to stuff the $4 wrapped in a note on printer paper, I had to laugh at myself. I love magic. I love how children are so quick to believe in the beauty of the unknown. So here am I - plain, old me - filling the sparkly shoes of the legendary Retriever of Teeth. There really should have been a tinkling of chimes or glitter...but it was just blue jeans and a Sharpie-written treatise discussing the doling-out of the rewards. But in my head, that Tooth Fairy was there in all her toole-skirted, ringlet-wigged, magic wand-toting glory. And in the morning, as far as my boy was concerned, she had been there. I want him to hold onto that innocence as long as possible. That belief in something more. That hope in magic.

I just don't have the heart to tell him that the Tooth Fairy wears blue jeans.