So last week we had a rite of passage in our home. My five-year-old lost her first tooth. It was a little bit traumatic due to the fact that she swallowed it, but I convinced her to write a letter to the tooth fairy explaining what had happened and everything would be fine. That evening after she went to bed I snuck in her room, grabbed the letter, and left her a dollar. The next morning at church some of our friends heard her talking about getting a dollar. I swelled with pride, well, until I noticed the posse circling around me. All of a sudden the tooth fairy patrol began to cross examine me.

Apparently two of our friends gave their daughters twenty dollars for the first tooth and one friend gave her son forty dollars. Forty dollars!!! That is insane. Why in the world would anyone give a five-year-old forty dollars for a tooth?  So I started to feel guilty. I began to poll all of my friends and apparently the average amount of money a child received from the tooth fairy was ten dollars. I don’t know about you, but ten dollars is a lot more precious in our household these days.

Nevertheless, two weeks later when my daughter lost her second tooth (thankfully we rescued it from the sink before it went down the drain), the tooth fairy left a more generous gift of five dollars. Suffice it to say I was a bit chagrined when my daughter yelled for me to come to her room. Upon seeing her prize she sighed wistfully and said, “I wish the tooth fairy would quit leaving me these useless tickets. I would much rather have some crayons or bubble gum!” From the mouth of babes…