A Visit from the Tooth Fairy
Part of what makes parenting so much fun is celebrating all the little milestones along the way—the first time baby rolls over, the first steps and, as recently happened in my household, the first lost tooth.
I wasn’t prepared for the whole tooth fairy thing until my daughter came home with a tooth ready to fall out. A bit of panic set in when I realized I didn’t know what the tooth fairy was up to these days (surely inflation has kicked in since I was a kid), and I had to get some sort of pillow or locket quick! Lucky for me, I have lots of people to ask about tooth fairy traditions. Here are a few of my favorite ideas that I’ve heard.
Tooth fairy must #1: The tooth “pillow.” If you are prepared ahead of time, you can pick up a super-cute personalized pillow like this one.
Because I could get it overnight—and it was a good thing I did—I picked up this Reed & Barton silver tooth fairy box. The design is quite brilliant, and I appreciated that there were instructions included that my daughter actually read before she put it under her pillow. The star on the string is meant to be left out from under the pillow so the tooth fairy can easily sneak in and pull the box out to claim her tooth.
Tooth fairy must #2. The money. The tooth fairy gets wildly creative with what she leaves. Some of the swag kids are getting these days: gold dollar coins, foreign money, new glow-in-the-dark electric tooth brushes and fun flossers, two dollar bills.
More tooth fairy magic! Some other things the tooth fairy is doing to make losing a tooth a little more magical:
1. Lots of fairy dust (glitter) under the pillow and all over the money
2. Tooth fairy letters and receipts for lost teeth
3. Sprinkle pepper around the tooth pillow so when the fairy flaps her wings, the pepper makes her sneeze and she drops coins
4. Leave the window cracked so the tooth fairy can get in and then sprinkle fairy dust on the sill overnight
5. Tooth fairy kits from the Office of the Tooth Fairy (pictured above) with official-looking certificates of deposit for lost teeth
Proof there is a tooth fairy. There are some fun sites like Capture the Magic where you can have some Photoshop fun to prove the tooth fairy actually came for a visit.
Our tooth fairy came with a trail of glitter and gold dollar coins jangling in her pockets, but I loved exploring all the things parents are doing to make this milestone special!
What special traditions do you have in your home?
