Tooth Fairy

On Friday of last week one of the rites of childhood occurred in our house. Heather lost her first tooth. It had been wobbly for about ten days and she had gone through the whole gamut of emotions. Initially she was excited as she had been waiting for such a long time to have a wobbly tooth and she had seen lots of people at her school with wobbly teeth.

Then she realised that the tooth would actually have to come out and the worry set in, would it bleed lots? Would it hurt? Where would it come out and what if she lost it? I think she remembered when one of the children lost their very first tooth at swimming, it had actually fallen down the toilet. One plucky mum had donned rubber gloves and rescued it, above and beyond the call of changing room duty.

As it happened Heather was in a very good mood having had her friend round to play that evening, we had been watching Children in Need and were having a tickling game. She wriggled and scraped against the top of the sofa.
'Oh' she said and I noticed that her mouth was bleeding. She opened up and indeed there was a gap where the tooth had been. We grabbed a tissue to swab her mouth and moved the cushion to find the tooth. As it hadn't hurt and didn't bleed too much and looked interesting now it was out Heather was over the moon.

She wrote a letter to the tooth fairy and put her tooth in a little pot next to her bed. In the morning Matthew and Lucy, who had already been put to bed the previous night, were surprised to see their sister with a gap but excited for her when she revealed the shiny coin the tooth fairy had left for her. I think we'll be having a repeat performance very soon as the tooth next to the gap is working itself loose now as well...