Last Thursday, Mazzy lost her 4th tooth. It’s the bottom tooth to the left of the middle two. You can see it missing if you look really closely at the pic above. Not the most important tooth in the mouth, by any means, and not really a monumental moment (she pulled the last thread herself while brushing her teeth). Plus, I wasn’t even home to witness the loss. I worked late that night and the news was delivered to me via text.

“The Tooth Fairy needs to make a visit tonight,” Mike texted.

“Ah. Okay. Did Mazzy write her a note?” I texted back.

“Yep.”

This is our custom. Mazzy writes a note and along with a few dollars (drenched in fairy dust), the Tooth Fairy always responds.

When I came home, Mazzy was already sleeping and I was exhausted. Next thing I knew, it was 6:30am. No one else was awake yet so I got up and hopped in the shower. Mid-way through shampooing, it hit me— I think the tooth fairy was supposed to come last night. I washed quickly and jumped out of the shower, hoping the tooth fairy might have time to make a last minute visit before Mazzy woke up. That’s when I heard Mazzy shrieking from her room.

“SHE DIDN’T COME!!!”

Oh shit. I ran into her room. “Who didn’t come?”

“THE TOOTH FAIRY!!!!”

“Oh well…that happens all the time. She doesn’t always come the first night. You have to give her a few days so she can complete her rounds.”

“It does NOT happen all the time!!!”

“Yes, it does, Mazzy. It happened to me when I was kid. Sometimes it takes her two or three days to come because she has to make sure she visits kids who lost their first tooth first.”

“What if she doesn’t come tonight?????”

“She will, Mazzy. I’m sure of it.”

That night, after placing her note and tooth under the pillow AGAIN, Mazzy expressed fear that the tooth fairy was going to skip her for the second night in a row.

“I don’t think she’s going to come.”

“Why not?”

“Because she didn’t come last night!”

“I told you. She has lots of other kids to visit and can’t fit everyone in one night. Maybe a lot of kids lost teeth last night.”

“That’s not true, Mom. I think each kid has their own tooth fairy.”

“What? Why would you think that?” (This was news to me but seemed oddly accurate.)

“Because everyone gets different amounts of money. And some people get letters from their tooth fairies and some people don’t. And I get fairy dust on my money but I don’t know anybody else who gets that. And Anabel’s tooth fairy’s name is Lily. Mine isn’t.”

“What’s your tooth fairy’s name?”

“HER NAME IS TOOTH FAIRY.”

This is true. I’ve seen her letters and she does indeed sign them “Love, the Tooth Fairy.”

“So, if your Tooth Fairy doesn’t have anybody else to visit except you,  why wouldn’t she come tonight?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out!!!”

“I don’t know, Mazzy. Maybe she came last night but you were still awake so she had to leave. Maybe you need to fall asleep earlier tonight.”

“No, that’s not it. I went to bed early last night. Maybe she didn’t come because YOU AND DADDY WERE STILL AWAKE.”

“Oh, maybe. We’ll go to sleep early tonight too. Oh, I know! Maybe she didn’t have any money on her and needed to go to the bank!”

“No, Mom. She doesn’t come with money. She turns the teeth into money.”

This was also news to me. “Oh. I didn’t realize that’s how it works.”

Then Mazzy realized she had wrapped her tooth in tissue before putting it inside her tooth pillow. “Maybe she didn’t know it was a tooth because it was inside the tissue! I’m going to take it out.”

“Good idea, Mazzy.”

Finally, Mazzy stopped asking questions and settled down to go to sleep.

I went back to my room and wondered what the hell excuse Tooth Fairy was going to come up with to write back to Mazzy to explain why she f’ed up.

The next morning, Mazzy woke up and ran into our room. “SHE CAME!!!!!!!!!”

“Did she give you money?”

“YES! With fairy dust on it, just like every time.”

“Did she leave a note telling you why she didn’t show up the night before?”

“Yep.” Mazzy reopened the note to read it to me. “She said… Sorry, I didn’t come last night. I fell asleep early by accident.”

“Ahhhhh…that makes sense. Tooth fairies have to sleep too, you know!”

“Yeah,” Mazzy agreed. “It does make sense.”

I mean, if Mazzy’s right and each kid has their very own tooth fairy, then it definitely makes sense that a kid with a remarkably average parent like myself would be stuck with a remarkably average tooth fairy too.