Annabelle's First Visit from the Tooth Fairy!

Annabelle's first loose tooth has been loose for quite a while. In fact, I was starting to get worried because she was experiencing what her dentist called "shark tooth"...

Last night, she FINALLY had a break through (literally)! Annabelle was eating jello (of all things!) and all the sudden started crying because her mouth hurt and was bleeding. I told her that losing her tooth was going to hurt a little, but that she should keep working at it and maybe it would come out soon. Not five minutes later she came running out of the bathroom with her tooth in her fingers and a hole in her mouth! I haven't seen her this excited about anything since Christmas morning!

For the rest of the night, her tooth was all that she could talk about! She was going over her ideas of what the Tooth Fairy would bring and told me about what some of her friends got from the Tooth Fairy. We discussed that the Tooth Fairy collects teeth because she takes them back to her home and grinds them up to make magic pixie dust. She was excited that she was going to get to tell her class and teacher about it the next day and that she would get to wear a "tooth necklace" in class. She even asked me exactly what time her tooth fell out so that she could tell her class when it happened (my estimate was 5:00). She was so excited that she wanted me to call her teacher and tell her about it right then. Instead, I offered to email her teacher about it and send a picture. She repeatedly said "I still can't believe that I lost a tooth!" As we talked about the Tooth Fairy, she ran to her room to retrieve the "TOOTH" pillow that my sister and I used as kids (Thank God she knew where it was because I had no idea!).

When bedtime came, Annabelle put her tooth into her pillow and put the TOOTH pillow next to her pillow. After saying her prayers, she told God that her "Thankful For" thing for the day was losing her tooth.

Once she went to bed, my Tooth Fairy job began. I had already hit facebook to ask my fellow Tooth Fairies for help on the going rate for teeth. Armed with this knowledge, I decided to go with a treasure hunt approach to giving Annabelle a special dollar for her tooth. At first I was hoping to give her a dollar coin, but in the end I'm glad I ended up with a paper dollar because then I (I mean, the Tooth Fairy) could write on it. I went to work cutting out "clue" paper and armed with my pen and crayons, I made up the clues.

I finished my clues around midnight and went around the house planting the clues. Once all of the clues were out, I went to Annabelle's room to put the first clue into her pillow and retrieve the baby tooth. As I slipped my hand into the pillow to get the tooth, my girl who sleeps through EVERYTHING immediately opened her eyes and said "What are you doing?!" I told her I was heading to bed and just wanted to check to see if the Tooth Fairy had come yet. Whew! I thought I had just blown the whole Tooth Fairy thing before she ever got to enjoy it! Fortunately she believed me, and just asked if she had come yet or not. I told her the tooth was still there and that she was probably waiting for Mommy & Daddy to go to bed too so that we wouldn't see her. She laid her head back down and drifted right back to sleep.

Not wanting to be caught again, I was struggling with whether to make my second attempt at the tooth/clue exchange before going to sleep or to wait until the middle of the night (or early morning). Also, I didn't want her to wake up and find the clue in her pillow before the morning because I REALLY wanted the treasure hunt to happen when it was light out, not in the wee hours of the night. Before falling asleep around 1 a.m., I decided to try again (in hopes of turning off my 3 a.m. alarm clock setting), and this time I was successful! Go Tooth Fairy!

After that, everything went exactly as I had hoped! Annabelle woke up to her alarm clock in the morning, found the first clue, and immediately came to show me! I helped her read the first clue, and she immediately found the second. She ran around collecting clues, getting more excited with each one that she found! While she collected clues, she told me that the Tooth Fairy probably gave her clues because she knew that she loves treasure hunts. She also complimented the Tooth Fairy's drawing and coloring skills (especially on the Wii Fit game), and she told me a story about how she actually saw the Tooth Fairy in her loft when she opened her eyes for a second. She said that she only saw her head with beautiful long blonde hair and her pink wand, and she thinks she didn't see anything else because she left quickly when she saw that Annabelle was awake. The whole time Corgan was on her heals helping her to find the next clue. It was priceless!

When she finally found the "prize" special dollar bill, she was on cloud 9! She loved that the Tooth Fairy wrote her name and the date on her special dollar AND that she loves coloring so much that she colored on the dollar bill too!

After Annabelle's hunt was done, Corgan said "Okay, my turn now!" When I told him that he was going to have to wait until he lost his first tooth to get to do a treasure hunt from the Tooth Fairy, he was totally bummed!

Annabelle asked to bring her dollar to school so that she could share about it in front of her class. She assured me that another friend had taken her dollar in a few days earlier, so I let her bring it (and cleared it with her teacher before she took it into the class). When I picked Annabelle up from school, she was so proud to be able to be wearing her tooth necklace and her teacher told me all about how well Annabelle did telling her class all about her tooth experience.

I am having a hard time believing that my baby is old enough to have lost a tooth, but I never imagined that this experience would be so much fun for her! She has been giddy about it all day long, telling me her "I saw the Tooth Fairy" story and about how she keeps reaching for her tooth to wiggle it only to remember that it's already gone! She has also commented many times that she can't bite her fingernails now because she doesn't have a tooth there. Her "Thankful For" again tonight was losing her tooth. I love her excitement, and I loved being her Tooth Fairy! I can't wait for Corgan's turn!