The Tooth Fairy Frenzy

Adam lost his first tooth! The 2 front ones have been pretty wiggly for weeks now and last night at dinner Mark said "boy that one's so loose you could just about pull it!" So with huge drama, Adam pretends to pull it out: "And a 1, and a 2...and a .....3!!!" Then he looks at his hand. The look on his face when he realized that he really DID pull it out was PRICELESS! So then begins the discussion of the Tooth Fairy. Now, I just wrote that these 2 teeth have been wiggly for weeks so we really should have expected the teeth to actually come out some time right? We were not prepared for the Tooth Fairy! Argh! We had not talked about how much to leave, whether we would have the little tooth box or bag to leave each time, whether he should write a letter, whether there would be any other token left along with the money, but most important...how MUCH! I've had the conversation in the lunch room at work with coworkers. Honestly, I thought it was pretty ridiculous! Parents these days apparently are leaving $20 and up for first teeth, video games, coloring books, candy bars, new baseball mitts. Yikes! While I wanted to nurture my child and continue the Tooth Fairy fun we enjoyed as children, I didn't want to set a precedent for Christmas type spending on teeth. So we did what any modern parents would do. We Googled it. Fortunately, Mark came across a great blog by a parents who found herself in the exact same predicament we were in, back in April. It was awesome to know we weren't the only slackers, or the only ones opposed to needing overtime pay to finance a baby tooth. The theme that occured in our research was to use some sort of special token for payment like a $2 bill or a $1 coin, a novelty. It also recommended having kids write letters to the Tooth Fairy so she could write backing explaining "the tooth rules of payment". Thus giving the kids clear expectations for the FIRST TOOTH vs. ALL OTHER TEETH. First Tooth=Bigger Reward. All that being said we left $2 in single bills (no time now to get to a bank for odd bills or special coins) and Mark typed -to disguise the handwriting- a lovely, sweet letter from the Tooth Fairy. We had Adam label the tooth envelope himself and address it to the Tooth Fairy, didn't think about having him write a letter until after he was in bed! All in all, we didn't completely blow it, but now that we are expecting the 2nd one to come out any day now, we need to be prepared! We will be paying $1 coins for all other teeth and will need to make a visit to the bank to get them. I think that 50cents is plenty, but Daddy was put in charge of Tooth Fairy duty and that was his call, I'm supporting it totally. This morning before 6:30am our boy was in our bedroom shaking with excitement over his discovery. He had his wallet out and plans made to visit the Dollar Store without delay. After I explained that the store wouldn't be open for 4 more hours he settled down to reread the letter. Bliss. We didn't blow it. More bliss. Now we will follow the Boy Scout motto and "Be Prepared" for the next tooth because while it seemed like just last week when we saw the tooth first appear in his little gummy mouth, it will be that quick that the others will fall out too, bringing on the grown up teeth. *sigh*