Tooth Fairy Nonsense

Frances lost a tooth at camp last week.  It was totally unexpected. She had never mentioned that she had a loose one.  In fact, she says she didn't know it was loose until right before it came out.  They were reading books and eating lunch at camp.  She said her mouth hurt, so she put her hand up to her face.  Realizing that it was only one specific tooth that hurt, she pushed on it.  And it moved.  So she pushed some more and it came out!

Thankfully her story was less bloody that the kid who fell out of the tree the day before and had to be sent home.  I'm sure her camp leader wasn't expecting that much excitement in camp that week!

The problem with not having any notice for this loose tooth, was that I was not prepared to play tooth fairy.  In the past we've given her a $2 bill for each tooth.  It wasn't actually that expensive because of her poor money handling skills.  She would coo over her cool $2 bill and carry it around the house with her.  Inevitably she would put it down somewhere and forget about it.  Then I would find it and hide it away for the next lost tooth. (Does that make me a horrible mother??)

This time, though, it had been a while since any teeth had come out in our house.  I couldn't remember where that $2 had gotten to.  I texted Ken at work to see if he had any in the tills at work.  No such luck.  We decided to go with two dollar coins.  Those are fun and cool too, right?  She put her tooth in her tooth pouch and placed it under her pillow before bed.  I remembered to do the swap before I went to bed. No one woke up and Frances was excited for her money in the morning.  That's how tooth fairy stuff is supposed to work, right??

Not anymore! Apparently, the tooth fairy is trying to become big business! A company has come up with a way to commercialize the tooth fairy.  Not only will they assign a rock star attired fairy to your child, but they will sign you up for a targeted marketing campaign that will follow your child well into adulthood.

Don't get me wrong, fairies and princesses are okay with me to an extent. But why do we have to take long-held family traditions and commercialize them?  At some houses, the tooth fairies leave notes or toothbrushes or glittery foot prints.  My kids have never compared their tooth fairy to anyone else's.  Our tooth fairy has always brought two dollars. Heck, even the same $2 over and over again!!  Why do we need to make it a computer-based program with a database worth millions behind it?

I'm saying "no thank you" to commercializing the tooth fairy at my house.  You can follow the link above and get involved too.

Tell me about the tooth fairy at your house.  What special tooth traditions do you have?