Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The Tooth Fairy

    After weeks and weeks of loose teeth and anticipation, Evelynn finally lost one of her teeth. Every one of those days of waiting to lose that first tooth was exclaimed over. It began with "I have a loose tooth!" and then became "I have four loose teeth!!" She told everyone, literally; everyone at church, all her family members, the workers at Target and the grocery store, the people in New York City along the Thanksgiving Day Parade route, everyone at dance. No one was left out of her enthusiasm and if you know her, you are aware that she gets excited about anything and it knows no bounds.
    Every night she wiggled those teeth before falling asleep. My hand mirror disappeared from my bathroom and I found her late one night sitting up in bed, one hand holding the mirror in the dim lamp light and the other aggressively working away on her teeth. Daily, she approached me with "Can you see how loose they are now? Look at this one. It's really wiggly." After agreeing with her, she would declare "If my tooth falls out today, it will be the best day ever." I could not wait for that day. Her passion for her loose teeth was quickly not being returned. I asked her if I could just knock it out for her. She politely refused and said she would do it herself.
    It took another two weeks for her loosest tooth to fall out. And she never knew it. We were at the dance Christmas party and she ran up to eagerly tell me something. I noticed right away that her tooth was gone. "No, I didn't lose it," she said. Oh, but yes, it was gone. There was nothing there. "But where is it?" she asked, frantic. Weeks of obsessing over this first tooth and she never had the privilege of removing it herself. Maybe it fell out or maybe she swallowed it, we will never know. Her precious tooth was lost, and there was a new problem. How was the Tooth Fairy supposed to know she lost it? She had nothing to put under her pillow.
    She fretted over what to do until I suggested she write the Tooth Fairy a note explaining the situation. She had renewed fervor. Here is her letter to the Tooth Fairy. She had some spelling help, but her letter is priceless, including the picture she drew to further illustrate the missing tooth.
 
 
The Tooth Fairy visited her and left a note for Evelynn. In it, she said she had found a tooth and had been searching under pillows trying to find who lost it. And in case you're wondering, the Tooth Fairy left $1 coin, like the Sacajawea coin, but with George Washington on it. She gets excited about the First President, too.