So, it has finally happened. The Boy, who has been waiting for what seems like forever, has finally lost that first tooth! Many of his friends, even those much younger, have already lost several teeth and The Boy was really starting to think his would never fall out. Well, a couple of weeks ago, we did a "wiggle" check and wouldn't you know this child had 6 loose teeth! Not one to be left behind on a milestone (he walked "late", but he learned in just a couple days!) this kid will be completely toofless in no time, ahead of his peers. ;)
That first tooth wiggled and then hung on for dear life for over a week with speech being altered, foods having to be completely chopped up, brushing taking forever as that tooth could not be disturbed! This mama would pray daily for that thing to just fall out already! I'm guessing his Mama regaling him with the tale of her first lost tooth going down the hatch with a bite of a barbecued hamburger did not help matters.
When the tooth finally dropped this weekend (surprisingly while he was eating a hamburger!) I started to feel a small panic coming over me. OMG. The. Tooth. Fairy. What in the world were we going to do about this fairy chick. You see, we don't do Santa or the Easter Bunny, so I was a little miffed at having to now conjure up this illusion of a fairy flitting into our home and absconding with my kid's tooth in the night while he slept. I mean, really? Another break-into-your-house-at-night-while-you-sleep-and-you-better-leave-me-something-if-you-want-me-to-give-you-something character I gotta stay up late for and organize?! Ain't nobody got time for that. And the exchange rate?! My goodness. Apparently the street value on these missing teeth is upwards of $25 for the first tooth and then $5 -$10 for every tooth after that depending on tooth location and order of loss?! So, not only do we get to continue this illusion, we have to take out a 2nd mortgage to pay for it?! And if we think long and hard about it all, what it boils down to is the selling of body parts, right? Yeah. #ThanksNoThanks And at what point do you stop? The "5 - 7 shift" (the age where children typically stop believing in fantasy) just so happens to occur around the age of the first tooth loss. Are pre-teens still buying into the Tooth Fairy when their molars fall out? *sigh*
Yes, we did the whole TF thing growing up, and it was fun to get 25¢ (YES! WE ONLY GOT A QUARTER PER TOOTH!) but playing in the garage one day and looking through some file cabinets I came across a dossier with my name on it (Okay, it wasn't a file and it didn't have my name on it, but it was an envelope. Plus, how cool is it to read the word dossier.). Anywho, I had 4 teeth extracted and the surgeon gave us the teeth in a little brown envelope and guess what I found in the file cabinet drawer?! Right. TF my eye. So, along with the childhood magic of Santa (which was crushed at an early age by an older brother, a mean cousin, and some not so with it adults....hello, it is only 6:30 p.m. and we are all still wide awake and standing in the next room looking through the crack in the door watching you dump out trash bags full of presents and going "Ho! Ho! Ho!" *sigh* Wait, I need a minute. Okay.) I knew what was up. Why all the pomp and circumstance? Why not just give your kid the money and, I don't know, throw the teeth away or put them in a proper memory box?!
As Christians, and as parents striving to make holidays more Christ-centered and meaningful for our son and our family, we do still allow for Santa and the Bunny to have their "stories" told. The Boy knows that Santa is a legend (he decided this on his own one day while we were back home in Korond!) and he enjoys reading his "story" in December and likes to act it out himself. But he knows first and foremost that we do not celebrate or honor this "character" in any way. We are celebrating the birth of our Savior. The same goes for the Bunny. It is a fun thing we do on Easter Sunday to look for hidden eggs, but it is what we do after we have gone to Sunday service and all of that. And he knows it's his Mama and Daddy that have purchased and brought the gifts or hidden the eggs.
Who is the Tooth Fairy?
What does she look like?
Is it a she?
How will she get in and out of our house?
How does she get around the world every night?
Does she really fly?
Does she really fly?
Why is she taking teeth?
Where is she going to put my tooth?
Can I ever see it again?
Does she have helpers like Santa?
What does she bring?
Does everybody get the same thing?
Does everybody get the same thing?
According to Wikipedia (and isn't that where we all go to for accurate information) I have a plethora of "stories" to choose from! Let's see, first off it seems as though payment doesn't have to occur until the 6th tooth drops, or I can opt to only pay for healthy teeth! There's the one about the fighting Vikings collecting the lost teeth of small children to make "warrior necklaces". There's the "tooth bonfire" where young children were forced to throw their teeth in sacrificially or suffer in the afterlife constantly searching for and never finding their teeth. Throwing lower teeth up on the roof or dropping upper teeth through the floorboards while shouting out prayers for the teeth of a mouse because a rodent's teeth grow forever?! Don't really get that one. Burying teeth in the dirt to help new teeth grow. Praying for new teeth to grow in straight by tossing the tooth straight up or down. (My orthodontia history has me seriously bookmarking that idea.) A rat (El Ratón Pérez in many Latin countries) or a mouse (la petite souris in many western European countries) that sneaks in the house during the night to "purchase" the lost teeth with coins or small gifts as payment?! (Why a rodent? Were there many rodents in the home already stealing things and this was an easy explanation of a tooth being missing? Or of finding a rodent crawling around your pillow at night?! Yikes.) And this is perhaps the best one: having to burn or bury a lost tooth so the witches would not take possession of that body part giving them total control over you. Yes, so many wonderful myths to choose from.
So, as we buy a little more time to get our "story" straight and start our family's tooth tradition (I have a pretty good idea of the "what" we will do, just need to decide the "when") I'm curious:
What were the "Tooth Fairy" traditions when you were a child and what do you practice now with your kids?
UPDATE: We just spoke to my Hungarian mother-in-law via Skype and she says the family tradition for tooth loss was for the, um, "loser" to hold the tooth in their hands and say "Mouse, Mouse! Bring me an iron tooth! I am sending you a bone tooth!" and then the tooth would be tossed over the shoulder and left on the ground wherever it landed. No payment, elaborate story or note needed, tooth simply tossed like so much trash. GAH! What about the witches finding it?!
Here is what readers are sharing on Facebook:
"My daughter hasn't lost any teeth yet, but I have heard two things I love my friends do and will have to decide which one when the time comes. One friends dusts a dollar bill with glitter aka "fairy dust". The other friend leaves a dollar coin. I've also seen cute pouches people use instead of putting the tooth under the pillow."
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