Your child losing her first tooth is a big deal, but you know what’s an even bigger deal? Your child losing the TOP FRONT TOOTH! There’s no denying your rapidly aging offspring with that kind of solid evidence flaunting itself right in the middle of your child’s face. Clearly, this is getting dangerously close to big-girl-about-to-move-out-of the-house-and-have-her-own-children territory.

Luckily for me, Mazzy does not like when her teeth fall out either. She held on to her top front tooth for about SIX MONTHS after most normal children would have tied their wobbly tooth to a doorknob and flung that thing open and fast and as furiously as possible. Not Mazzy. She did everything in her power to keep her tooth firmly in place. By the time it finally fell out, it was hanging by a thread. It was so loose that her mouth created this empty space next to the dangling tooth; a gap so huge, most people thought she had already lost her tooth.

“Nope. Her mouth is just really confused.”

She wouldn’t eat with it. She wouldn’t touch it. She barely brushed it.

“Mazzy, let me just wiggle the tooth to see how loose it is.”

“No!”

“Can I just SEE it?”

“No!”

This went on for months. “How about you eat an apple?”

“No!”

“What about tying a string to a drone?”

“What’s a drone?”

“Nevermind.”

She pretty much stopped smiling to make sure she kept it inside.

“Why are you so afraid to lose your tooth, Mazzy?”

She told me she was scared of how it would look. “Mazzy, every kid looks ADORABLE with a missing tooth!”

Finally, the fateful day came. On our walk home, Mazzy was tired and wanted to sit in Harlow’s stroller. Most of the time, I tell her to suck it up, but it had a been a long day and I asked Harlow to get up so Mazzy could sit down and then Harlow sat on her lap. I pushed them both.

Then suddenly, “MOM!!!!!!!!”

“What?????”

“I LOST MY TOOTH!!!!!!!!”

“What? Where is it???”

“I DON’T KNOW!!!!!!!”

Mazzy and Harlow jumped out of the stroller and searched themselves. I looked in the stroller, in their clothes, on the ground around me. We found nothing. I asked Mazzy how it happened. She told me that the hood of Harlow’s jacket had caught on it and flung it out of her mouth.

“How far???” I asked her.

“I DON’T KNOW!!!!”

I scanned the sidewalk. We were clearly in trouble. For one thing, it was night and already dark out. Secondly, it had recently snowed and there was white snow everywhere. And thirdly, someone had sprinkled the sidewalk with rock salt to make the snow melt and if you know what that looks like, you know pretty much everywhere appeared to be covered in tiny teeth. Rock salt is all chemicals so after the girls inspected and threw back a few pieces (“Mom! Is this a tooth?”), I was like— “Game over. We are not touching any more salt.”

“BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TOOTH FAIRY?????!!!!!!”

“Well, Mazzy, I don’t know the tooth fairy but I’ve heard that she will still come even if you’ve lost your lost tooth. Just write a note explaining the situation and put it under your pillow.”

“I don’t think she’s going to come, Mom.”

“I’ll bet you your tooth fairy money that she does.”

“No way, Mom.”

Mazzy wrote the tooth fairy a note explaining the horrible set of circumstances that resulted in her literally lost top front tooth. The tooth fairy did indeed leave her some glitter covered money anyway (I’m pretty sure she uses my gold sparkle nail polish to do it) and wrote a note back saying that if Mazzy finds the tooth when the snow melts (highly unlikely), she would come back.

The next day, I caught Mazzy looking at her new smile in the mirror.

“I decided I like how it looks, Mom.”

“I told you it would look adorable. Just don’t lose that second top tooth any time soon!”

“It already loose, Mom.”

“Can I touch it to see how much it wiggles?”

“NOOOOO!!!!!”

Oh boy. At least I know she’ll be hanging onto that last shred of youth right along with me.