Tooth Fairy

Jack lost his other front tooth yesterday at school.   His teacher pulled it for him (thank you, Mrs. Pitts!), and he brought it home in a ziploc bag.  He said, "I can show you exactly when it happened," and opened his lunch box to show a partially-eaten sandwich. 

Last night as we were getting ready for bed, he started looking for the tooth to leave for the tooth fairy.  He said, "You and Daddy are the tooth fairy, right?"  His sister had told him that,  and Jack is the type of man who is glad to know that there are not really fairies, however benevolent they may be, creeping around his room and looking under his pillow at night.  So I said yes, and we finally found the plastic bag with his tooth in it.  He said, "I want to leave it in a cup again."  A cup?  I didn't remember, but apparently the last tooth to come out was left in a cup in the living room.  Even though he knew it would only be his precious mama slipping a quarter under his pillow, the idea of anyone "sneaking into his room," as he said, was a little unnerving.  And since the tooth fairy has gone five or six days in a row forgetting to retrieve the tooth and leave some cash with his siblings, she thought the visual reminder of a cup in the middle of the coffee table was an excellent idea.

Jack checked the cup this morning and said, "I got seventy dollars!"  Will and I both went to see; maybe there really was a tooth fairy!  If seventy dollars was the going rate, I'm sure Will would have taken some pliers to his molars this afternoon.  But Jack corrected himself and said seventy cents, which was all the loose change the tooth fairy could come up with.  And now Jack has that cute snaggle-tooth smile which I, the tooth fairy, will thoroughly enjoy until the new tooth shows up.