When I picked the Fiend up from Babydaddy’s house yesterday I got two surprises. First, Babydaddy wasn’t there. He has left the Fiend with his roomate who has two young kiddos of her own. I felt horribly guilty for putting his roomate out and terribly frustrated by his lack of regard for others all at once. She of course told me it was fine and not at all a big deal. I thanked her profusely for taking up the slack.
The second surprise came when the Fiend jumped up on me exitement beaming from her face. “I have a wiggly tooth!”
I was not prepared for this. She’s five going on six so it shouldn’t be unexpected, but it was. My mouth hung open for a while as she told me all about her wiggly tooth. She told me about all the hard foods she had been eating all day to try and dislodge it. I was also informed that the tooth fairy leaves either a penny or a watch. “I really rather like my wiggly tooth mama. But I’ll be ok when it falls out. When we get home can I have an apple?”
My baby is losing her baby teeth. I am not ready for her to lose her baby teeth. That implies that she may no longer be a baby.
On the other hand she is so jazzed about it. There is no way I can rain on her parade. It doesn’t matter that I want to keep her small. She is growing up and I have to learn to accept it.
So we will be eating lots of apples, carrots and pears until that tooth pops out. And I’ll be ready with the penny. Or the watch.
The Gillman Girl Home for Wayward Creatures and Unwanted Things 
A penny or a watch? Oh I laughed at that. Where do kids come up with this stuff? It speaks to the magic and innocence inside them.
My son lost something like 4 teeth before he was 5 (yeah, he’s dentally precocious), and was the envy of his preschool. My daughter, otoh, had her first tooth pulled because it was abcessed. I nearly fainted but she was great about it. THAT one — well, a penny definitely would not do, and a watch, too early — so the Tooth Fairy somehow visited the dentist while she was having it pulled and delivered a Cinderella video.
The poor thing! It’s truly amazing how brave our kiddos can be. I think the video was well earned!