Inflation

Mikey finally … finally! … lost his first tooth.

At 7 years old, all of his friends have already lost multiple teeth and are sporting the jack-o-lantern look, and I was starting to get worried that the dentist was going to tell us he needed to extract some baby teeth since the stubborn things aren’t coming out, and that would have led to him never willingly setting foot in the dentist office again.

But, he didn’t have any “shark teeth” popping up behind the baby ones, so we were told we were good.

After more than a year of my husband and I asking, “Are any of them loose?” and “Can I try and wiggle some?” the kid finally declared that a few of his teeth were wiggly.

Not that he’d let us anywhere near them.

Finally, the bottom right-of-center tooth was loose enough that we could see it move when he nudged it with his tongue. So, I put the tooth fairy money on standby.

And then waited, and waited, and waited.

Now, when I was a kid and had a wiggly tooth, I toyed with that thing until it was hanging by a thread and able to be plucked out by the end of the day.

Not Mikey. He gingerly, tenderly massaged that sucker for weeks. And, because apparently he was nervous about losing his first tooth, he reduced his already restrictive diet of chicken tenders and pizza to French fries and apple slices so as not to disturb said tooth.

Then, one night while we were sitting around watching a movie, Mikey sat up straight on the couch and declared, “Oh! My tooth just came out!”

Hallelujah!

We cheered and he held a paper towel to the little hole left behind to soak up any blood, and then I put the tooth in a little Ziplock bag to be placed under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy. It was gross. Honestly, I think I’d rather clean up puke.

But whatever.

Anyway, that night we placed the little baggie with the tooth under his pillow, but after a few minutes Mikey said that he was relocating it to the night stand because he didn’t want the Tooth Fairy to get too close to him while he slept.

To be fair, it is a rather creepy concept.

As we secured the new placement, Mikey asked me, “How much money did you get from the Tooth Fairy when you were a kid?”

When I told him I got a clean, crisp $1 bill for each tooth, he paled.

“One dollar?” He scrunched his nose. “That’s it?”

“Well … Yeah,” I answered.

“Sean got $100 for his first tooth,” he notified me.

“Uh, no. I’m sure Sean didn’t get $100. Maybe he got $10 and mistook the number of zeroes.”

“Charlotte got $20,” he continued.

I made a mental note to change school districts as I took a deep breath and crafted my response.

“Well, Mikey, I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high if I were you, because the Tooth Fairy knows this family doesn’t need much, so she – or he – will probably only leave you a little bit of money as a congratulations.”

That seemed to pacify the child and – after taking a very long time to settle, due to him being “too excited to sleep” – he finally fell into slumber only to wake up at 6:30 a.m., eager to see what the Tooth Fairy left him.

He seemed content with the $5 bill and the five $1 “magical” coins.

Now we just need to manage those expectations for subsequent payments for bone chunks that fall out of his skull (really, what a weird tradition) because he will only be getting $1 for each of those.

What’s the going rate for the Tooth Fairy in your household? Asking for a friend.

Holly Crocco is editor of the Putnam County Times/Press and mother of a 7-year-old boy. She can be reached at editorial@putnampresstimes.com.