So here's the thing, John finally has a loose tooth. He has been waiting forever to lose a tooth. The permanent tooth is growing in behind it at a pretty rapid rate. Our dentist friend suggested that he wiggle it like crazy for a month and if it isn't out by then he will need to get it pulled. No problem, right?
Wrong. He refuses to move it, insists on soft foods, and even included it in his list of ailments the other day when he wanted to stay home from school. He has a very real fear of swallowing it without realizing it.
In order to get the show on the road (and avoid an expensive extraction) I asked him if he knew what happened when you lose a tooth.
"The tooth fairy comes-- does she really exist?" How do you answer that? Especially when I have kind of wanted to experience this rite of passage with him.
So I said, "I don't know. I guess we'll have to see."
"She puts money under your pillow."
And now I am talking to everyone who has ever had a child that has lost a tooth...
HOW DARE YOU???
Remember when the going rate was something like a dollar or less? Thanks for ruining the experience for me and my family you people who obviously want to buy your children's love!
I tried to test the waters, "How would you feel if she left you a penny?" I wanted to set him up to be ecstatic when he got 75 cents.
"Disappointed."
"How about if she left three--"
'Quarters' I was going to say but he cut me off with, "--dollars? I think she should give me five for my first tooth."
Really? If you do the math that is $100 over the life of his baby teeth! Multiply that by two since what he gets Katherine will have to have in order to maintain fairness and you get $200 by the end of it.
You people obviously haven't done the math.
So much for experiencing the joy of this rite of passage. I should have just told him the truth he likely knows already, there is no tooth fairy and his parents don't love his teeth enough to pay $100 for them.
8 comments:
Dollars? Who are these people? In our house she left a quarter a tooth! I thought my friend who gives their daughter a gold dollar in her birth year for each tooth was crazy but $5???? C'mon...I don't even pay for grades! What kind of parent am I?! ;)
I'm with Shay. I did tell my boys last year that 'she' wasn't real. It was a relief for all of us. Now they bring me the newly lost tooth, hand it to me .. and walk away.
Sorry we did do 5 dollars for the first and 1 dollar for the rest.
I'm not good at math.
But we haven't given them an allowance. That probably makes up for it somewhere.
We did $5 for the first and $1 for subsequent teeth. But here is the thing. Quinton lost his first two teeth in two days. After that he forgot to put his teeth under his pillow so it may not be that expensive after all.
We also have not done allowance yet because I can't figure out chores for them to do to earn money. You know me, I have to have a "plan" and I haven't come up with it yet. Ugh!
I'm with you. I grew up getting a quarter per tooth. And whether that's considered cheap nowadays or not, that's what I was planning on giving my kids. I suppose there's a possibility that I could be guilted into 75 cents. But you won't see me giving any more than that.
We give a silver dollar. And yes, when they leave the coin on the floor I collect it and re-distribute later. McKell's left fron tooth is so loose that it is crooked. It was cute for Halloween, but I think the tooth fairy needs to yank it while McKell sleeps. She also had shark teeth aka crocodile teeth - the adult teeth came in behind the baby teeth. I was worried about braces, but they are now perfectly straight - along the bottom anyway.
I think your math is flawed. Sure it might cost you in the beginning when they are young. When they get older and lose molars though, you should break the "no such thing as the tooth fairy" news to them by then. At least that is my plan. $5 a tooth is pretty steep, I may end up pulling my own teeth out for a little gas money.
Should we just forget about Santa too and call it all good? I mean, that could really save me in the long run.
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