Just Where Did I Put That Parenting Manual??

Similar to life in general it can be said that parenting is a continuous evolution of new experiences and learning on the fly. Such is the case right now with my wife and I and The Tooth Fairy.

Given that my eldest only turned 5 in late July, we really hadn’t taken the time to read our Tooth Fairy 101 Manual as we thought the need to do so was still some time away. Much to our big surprise my son came to me a few weeks back to show that his first tooth was loose. While it certainly caught me by surprise, I was also elated and proud to an extent that he had reached this milestone. My reaction however paled in comparison to that of my wife who really wasn’t expecting to see what my son showed her. I think the last time I saw her scream as loud and jump back as far was when I told her my favourite tattered and stained leather recliner from my bachelor days was moving with me after we were married. While she didn’t mean to react that way, she clearly wasn’t prepared to see the very first tooth that entered his mouth swaying back and forth and on the cusp of leaving.

We then realized that we needed a plan.. Neither one of us knew the going rate for a tooth nowadays, nor had we thought about how the Tooth Fairy would actually conduct the transaction. After some quick discussions and a couple of Google searches we had a plan. Now all we needed was for my son to tell us the tooth was ready to come out then dear old Dad would perform a gentle extraction and our plan would take hold.

It seems however that we forgot to tell our son that in order for the plan to work he shouldn’t swallow the tooth.

When my son told my wife and I that his tooth was missing after he took a bite of a Bear Paw cookie and it was nowhere to be found, I’m not sure who was more upset – my son or my wife. Watching your first born lose his first tooth, then collecting it only to have the Tooth Fairy magically take it away seems like a parenting right of passage. To know that the key element to this plan was now somehow circulating in my sons’ digestive system was devastating to my wife and if you had only seen the look on her face, you’d think she had just lost a puppy. However some quick photography and letter writing gave us a Plan B and thankfully the Tooth Fairy understood and left $2.50 and a thank you letter behind.

It is said that necessity is the mother of all inventions and in so far as our evolution as parents is concerned we have become parents creating inventions out of necessity. Yet despite this statement I still can’t wrap my mind around just who created that whole Tamagachi thing…