“I lost another tooth!” Emma yelled from her bathroom last night. She had brushed her teeth and the left upper six year molar baby tooth practically fell out. It was the second tooth in two days and the third tooth in a week to drop out. Between Emma losing her second wave of baby teeth at just shy of ten years old and Cabell losing his front baby teeth at seven years old, losing teeth has become a common occurrence at our house.
It has all led to a lot of talk and speculation about the tooth fairy. The talk at school centers around the going rate for teeth. Emma reported that one of her classmates had received a five dollar bill from the tooth fairy. She reported it to the family and then mumbled it while walking about the house. I believe that she thought the tooth fairy might be generally hanging around at our house and would become informed about the discrepancy in tooth values. As if she didn’t know already! So far Emma has peaked out at four quarters.
Emma, but not Cabell, has been cogitating on the identity of the tooth fairy. On all occasions the tooth fairy is referred to as “she.” Emma has even ventured so far as to inquire if I am the tooth fairy. “Do I look like the tooth fairy?” I retort. “Well, no,” she admits and I know it is true because I’ve heard the concensus of ideas about how the tooth fairy does, in fact, appear.
Emma and Cabell agree that the tooth fairy is small and that she has a feminine quality. She flies in at night on small, silent wings. She is lovely by all accounts although the details of hair, eyes, extremities, clothing or nakedness have never truly been addressed. The dilemma for Emma and Cabell is how to reconcile the petiteness of the tooth fairy with her ability to fly off with these hefty six year molars that are currently dropping out of Emma’s mouth. The debate yesterday morning was how does she fly and carry the tooth at the same time. Cabell suggested that she sits in the tooth and uses her wings as the motor to fly around sort of like Fred Flintstone uses his feet to propel his stone age car. Emma could buy into that general concept, but couldn’t solve the puzzle of how the tooth fairy managed if she had to pick up multiple teeth on the same trip.
I have had my own concerns about the tooth fairy. I believe her very fairy name relegates her to a tiny size and that is certainly supported by the fact that she comes and goes noiselessly and secretly in the middle of the night. I think that she is big enough to manage even a single molar in flight by carrying it in tiny slender arms while her dragonfly-like wings zip her back to her tooth stashing haven. She just works hard and makes one deliberate trip at a time. I can even imagine her whispering through the moonbeams on the magic carpet of a five dollar bill to be deposited at the bedside in exchange for a golden tooth. My complete mystification comes with the change. How in the world can she tote all those quarters?