Fallout


Today Rhiannon lost her first tooth. You can see it her open hand in the picture above. It is small, white, and sharp. Just like Rhiannon! The tooth (lower jaw, middle) had been loose (or wobbly in deference to Charlie&Lola of the UK) for about three weeks. Rhiannon kept wiggling it and wiggling it. Last night she and I were roughhousing which is big fun for both of us. She was eating her shirt, and I gave it a tug, and Rhiannon had a bit of blood in her mouth. The tooth was REALLY wobbly now and Rhiannon was convinced that it would come out over night. One wonders then if you have a loose tooth and it comes out in the night, does the tooth fairy put a coin in your mouth, and if so, do you get a free trip to the Underworld?

Anyway, Rhiannon awoke the next morning to find that her tooth was still attached to her jaw. This made her sad and impatient. Settling down to a bowl of cereal, she took two bites.

"MY TOOTH CAME OUT! MY TOOTH CAME OUT!"

Sure enough, her tooth lay in her hand. No blood, no pain or anything. No radiation. Rhiannon jumped up and down on the couch shouting. Next, she ran to the mirror to see the gap and then the hole where the tooth used to reside. She kept making faces. And now when she talks, she has a bit of a lisp. I never thought Rhiannon could get cuter, but there you go.

Now for a kid, losing a tooth is the first time most of them experience getting paid for something they produced. They all seem to come pre-programmed with the Tooth Fairy story, waiting greedily for that day to come when they will be overpaid for a few grams of calcium. As parents, we oblige. We prepare. We act.

I picked up a Sacajaweya "gold" dollar at the bank after work today. Rhiannon likes: money, girls (especially women of action), and gold. What could be better? Rhiannon was asleep by 8:30, but I waited until 12:30 to become, for a rare time in my life, a supernatural being, an element of folklore and oral history. It was also the first time I had ever become a fairy.

Rhiannon's paternal grandmother had gifted Rhiannon with a special Tooth Fairy pillow which included a tooth/coin pocket. Rhiannon made sure the tooth was in there and then promptly fell asleep on it.

I opened her door -- I wonder if squeaks are amplified at night. The music box she had suspending from the door clunked like an enormous knocker. I stood there wondering what the hell I was going to say to a waking child who was expecting some kind of fantastic, overnight switcheroo.

She was hanging half off of her bed when I came in, head on a different pillow, with the tooth pillow underneath it. I quickly found myself in the scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones has to make a switch one-to-one with a gold idol and a bag of sand. If I removed the pillow alone, her head would flop and she would wake. I found another pillow, though, made the switch. The tooth was still in the pocket (wouldn't I have been surprised to find a coin there...), so I swapped it out with the coin. To her credit, Rhiannon was expecting a silver quarter, so a gold dollar should go over quite well. I placed the pillow on the floor next to her bed so she would see it upon waking. Underneath was a Camp Rock snap-bracelet from the dollar store.

Mission accomplished, I left the room. Strangely, no clunking or squeaks as I left. It's betime for me now, 1:20 on a Saturday morning where I expect to get MAYBE six hours sleep. We shall see. If I am lucky, I will wake to excited shouts when Rhiannon sees what the Tooth Fairy has left her, and I'll add a comment to this post to let you know what happened.

Rhiannon. Now with more Cute!

Andrew (Papa)