the tooth fairy has had a hard time at the remy household. my son lost five of his baby teeth over the past year or two. i think the first time he was suspicious. “i put a tooth under my pillow and i get money? are you sure?” after the first magical transformation, he got pretty excited and had high expectations for the next experience.

no problems with tooth #2 (there may have been a few more. all the teeth kind of blur together after awhile).

my son decided to wash tooth #3 and get it nice and clean for the tooth fairy and dropped it down the drain. this was more than his little heart could take, and faced with great big tears rolling down his face, jana and i convinced him that the tooth fairy would use her special magic to retrieve the tooth. sure enough, the next morning, there was a dollar under his pillow, and all was well.

tooth #4 came out on a trip to utah. he put it under his pillow (it never went near a sink this time), and the next morning, it was still there! we puzzled over this with him, and decided that the orange county tooth fairy looked all over for him in his home, not realizing that he was out of town. we assured him that tooth fairy central would be notified of his absence and that they would track him down to utah, where the salt lake fairy would come and visit. the dollar under his pillow the next day confirmed this.

last night, i watched my boy put tooth #5 in the pocket of a special tooth holding pillow graciously created by aunt becky. a couple of hours later, the tooth fairy crept in and searched in the pocket, but found no tooth. nothing was under the pillow, either. in desperation, the sprite decided on the following high-risk course of action: the light was turned on, blankets removed, pillows removed, heads lifted, but the tooth was nowhere to be found. finally, an exasperated fairy left a crumpled dollar bill.

it ain’t easy being a tooth fairy::