When Miss 10 lost her first tooth five or so years ago, the Tooth Fairy left her a sweet little note written on special stationery with sparkly gold pen and curlicued, elaborate handwriting. She got similar treatment when the second tooth fell out. And the third. And then the Tooth Fairy had a new baby and was sleep-deprived and distracted and one morning, Miss 10 came into my bedroom and said tearfully, “The Tooth Fairy forgot to come last night!”
That night, the Tooth Fairy left a note telling Miss 10 that she was very sorry for being late.
All was well until a few months later, when Miss 10 lost another tooth the same night someone happened to be sleeping over. The Tooth Fairy again forgot to come, and again Miss 10 was in my room the next morning, perplexed and upset. So that night the Tooth Fairy’s note said that unfortunately she was confused to find someone else in Miss 10’s room the night before.
The next time the Tooth Fairy was late, it was because she was new and still learning where everyone lived.
And then she stopped leaving notes because she ran out of the fancy stationery and knew there would be a continuity problem if she started using a new kind of stationery so she chickened out and just stopped the notes altogether. Also the curlicued writing took ages to produce and the Tooth Fairy’s hand kept cramping up.
Another challenge the Tooth Fairy faced was that she only left shiny, new coins. Because, as she told Miss 10 in one of her notes, all gold coins which are in circulation come from the Tooth Fairy, so they start off shiny and new and then as people spend them, they get dull and old.
But when Miss 10 lost three teeth in one week, the local branch of ASB didn’t have enough shiny, new gold coins, despite the teller hunting through everyone else’s drawers for coins which were shiny and new enough. As the Tooth Fairy balanced her drooling baby on her hip and tried to explain to the teller that the coins HAD to be super-shiny because Miss 10 knew that all new coins came from the Tooth Fairy to start with, and the teller looked sceptical and possibly a bit freaked out by the wild look in the Tooth Fairy’s eye. A few more coins were located and the Tooth Fairy went home and hid them in the cupboard above the fridge.
And now Miss 10 is still losing teeth – not as many as before, thankfully, and not as fast – but there is a new complication. Master Five is going to start losing his teeth soon. And the Tooth Fairy is faced with the same dilemma about the notes and the shiny coins.
And the Tooth Fairy has another new baby now, and is a bit sleep-deprived and distracted again, but soon she’ll have to go along to that same bank and ask the teller – hopefully not the same one as before – for more shiny, new coins. And find some new fancy stationery and perhaps a silver sparkly pen this time.
And by the time the new baby reaches the age of Tooth Fairy visits, perhaps Miss 10 will be old enough to take over – or maybe Daddy.
Have a great week.
Katherine Granich
