*I wrote this in the spring of 2012. What made me remember this long-ago written post was that Owen lost his third tooth last night. He failed to seal the plastic bag and now the tooth is somewhere floating around in his sheets or under his bed.
"Mama! Maaaaamaaaaa!!!!!!" Owen screeches as he bounds down the stairs.
Ever accustomed to this type of bellowing I calmly asked, "Who is bleeding, what broke, is the house on fire, is your sister safe?"
"No, no NOOOOOO," he responds (rather exasperatedly, I might add)!
"My tooth is loose! See? Can you see? It is wiggly!"
Well, the long awaited event has finally occurred. 'Tis the season of daffodils and tulips popping forth from the earth and a tooth to pop out of the mouth of my child. And as my rather dramatic red-headed kindergartener becomes fixated on his one tiny little wiggly incisor, I become fixated on tooth-fairy preparedness.
The Tooth Fairy has failed the eldest Spencer boy on more than one occasion and caused my sweet little innocents (insert a roll of the eyes here) to doubt the abilities of the greedy pixy who comes like a thief in the night to add to her hoarde of exctracted baby teeth.
When my wallet was empty of spare change (and I didn't have the heart to take from the piggy bank of the very child who was expecting greater wealth), Auntie has saved the day and given a dollar or two to the great relief of the ill-prepared Fairy. Not wishing history to repeat itself, I stuffed away a dollar and a small bit of change in my bathroom cabinet for the day that Owen's little tooth decided to come out.
Weeks passed with many conversations like this,
"Mama, wiggle my tooth. How wiggly is it? A little bit wiggly or just medium wiggly?"
"Mama, is it a lot bit wiggly?"
"Mama, I think the Tooth Fairy is going to give me $100 dollars." (After I nipped that little fairy tale in the bud....) "Well, maybe $20. A kid in my class got $20!" (I'd like to have a word or two with that kid's tooth fairy.)
"Mama, Austin's tooth just fell right out of his mouth while we were singing in music class today. It just fell RIGHT OUT!" (And off he skipped to wiggle his as hard as he could in hopes that his might fall out during art.)
A few more weeks passed and his tooth was just getting to be plain stubborn, despite Owen's best efforts.
He was reaching a state of despair waiting for his tooth to come out while other lucky kids had their teeth seemingly dropping out of their heads with no provocation. And unfortunately, the biggest insult came just when Owen's tooth was advancing to the much anticipated medium-wiggly stage. His older brother, who already had 8 Tooth Fairy visits to his name, came home from school in a frenzy with a tiny little plastic tooth holder and said,
"I lost my tooth today! It just came out in my granola bar. And see? There is a piece of granola still stuck to it!"
After appropriate admiration for the disgusting granola adorned dentifrice and Owen's longing looks, off Drew went to play. And, since nothing in the tooth department goes well around here, Drew lost his tooth sometime between getting home from school and bedtime. We tore the place apart looking for that thing because I explained that the Tooth Fairy would accept no more notes or shark's teeth. Only the real deal would do.
As luck would have it, the Tooth Fairy was prepared for the unexpected event (I had no idea Drew's tooth was even loose!). When the house was finally still, off she crept to her bathroom cabinet to retrieve the reward that was set aside for Owen's tooth.
Poor Owen.
On the precise Spencer Scale of tooth wiggliness, I was sure Owen was going to be stuck at medium-wiggly for a long time. But noooo...... we had to have another tooth incident!
On our last night of Spring Break, after a wonderful week in Alabama at Grandma and Grandpa's house, I heard a ruckus on the floor above me coming from the area of the house where the boys were SUPPOSED to be sleeping. We were looking ahead to a long drive the next day and I was NOT in the mood for them to be playing all night. I stormed up the stairs and demanded to know "what in the world they thought they were doing when they were supposed to be snoozing!"
To my amazement, I saw the boys staring back at me with a frantic look in their eyes and the room torn apart.
"Mama!!! Owen FINALLY lost his tooth and now we can't find it!"
Great. Here we go again. Another lost, lost tooth.
Just when we were beginning to think the tooth had disintegrated and Owen wasn't going to get the long-awaited-for visit from Madame Tooth Fairy, Auntie came up and found the tooth.
When not a creature was stirring and the magic exchange of tooth for money was about to take place, I made a terrible yet not entirely unexpected discovery.
I had no cash.
And, letting history be my guide, I went to my sister/tooth-fairy bank manager and asked to borrow some funds.
Another tooth fairy fail.
