MySDMoms Staff When F lost her first tooth, it was good timing: the tooth had been loose for a while and it came out while we were eating dinner one night. She found the tooth right away, we ooohed and ahhhed, took a bunch of cute pictures, and the tooth fairy left $1 under her pillow that night. It was very sweet and fun and it all went very smoothly. Which, as you may know if you are a parent, is a pretty rare thing when it comes to anything involving kids. And wouldn’t you know it: losing her second tooth was a whole ‘nother ball game.
Maybe it’s just my fading memory, but I seem to recall my teeth being loose for only a few days before they came out. My mom likes to tell a story about looking in the rear-view mirror of her old VW bus and noticing the man in the car behind us looking like he was about to lose his lunch because I, who had been sitting in the very back (seatbeltless circa 1979) , had twisted my very loose top front tooth so that it was pointing directly at him through that back window. Good times! But F’s teeth, for some reason, get loose and then stay loose for about a month before they come out. Which, you know, is a challenge for a five year old – that’s a long time to patiently wait for that sucker to fall out. Which may explain why, when we walked into our neighbor’s kitchen last Friday night, two of her buddies had their hands in her mouth, trying to speed up the process. Needless to say, we stopped that action real quickly. It may have helped, though; by Saturday morning, her tooth was just barely hanging on and the tooth fairy was on high alert.
Unfortunately, I left town for an overnight/girls’ night out getaway on Saturday morning, so J knew it was going to be up to him if that tooth did come out. Fortunately, by the time he tucked her into bed Saturday night, the tooth was still hanging in there. Not for long, however. J said she came in and woke him up around 11pm, holding her tooth and practically screaming with excitement, “DAAAAD!! WAKE UP! MY TOOTH CAME OUT!” In his state of grogginess, he said he remembered telling her that while it WAS in fact super exciting and awesome, the tooth fairy MAY not make it that night because her tooth had come out so late. He said she seemed to be ok with that, so they wrapped up that little tooth and he tucked her back into bed. Did she go right back into a deep sleep? Hardly. He had to sneak back in there a total of THREE more times throughout the night to finally replace that tooth with a dollar bill without her waking up and catching him. Did I mention my husband is awesome? That is serious commitment right there. He finally got back to sleep around 2am and she woke him up at 6am, like she does every morning.
J was sleepy most of the day on Sunday, but he was a trooper. F was bouncing off the walls with excitement and when I finally got home, she jumped up and down as she yelled the news to me about the tooth fairy’s visit. “SHE CAME! MOM! LOOK IN MY MOUTH! THE TOOTH FAIRY CAME!!”
Now that her bottom two middle teeth have fallen out, which ones are supposed to be next? Regardless, I hope to be home when it happens. I’ll be pretty bummed if I miss it again. Milestones are precious and awesome, mostly. Some are even worth staying up half the night for.
