Good-bye First Baby Tooth, Hello First Visit from the Tooth Fairy!

It all began when I dropped Kayli off at her kindergarten room last Friday morning and I heard her say to her friend, "Megan, look, I have a loose tooth!" Well, I thought, she was just making it up so she could have a story like Megan, who has had a loose tooth for a while. But, lo and behold, when I picked her up at the end of the day, she did indeed have a loose tooth! She was wiggling that tooth with her tongue, as proud as can be! That night, she spent some time in front of the mirror, examining that tooth, and worrying that she might swallow it in her sleep.

Tuesday morning, during her typical morning routine of alternating between doing something on-task, like brushing her teeth, followed by doing something off task, like rolling around on the floor while singing Jingle Bells, she suddenly stops and says "Look Mom, my tooth" as she holds it in her hand for me to see. Now, the excitement begins!

The ongoing dialogue, all the way to school, about the tooth fairy! The school nurse gave Kayli a special plastic tooth-shaped necklace to wear proudly around her neck at school, as her badge of honor!  Oh, yes, losing a tooth is BIG STUFF at school! Kayli couldn't wait to go to bed last night so the tooth fairy could come! She decided to put her tiny little tooth in a special little trinket box on the bedside table, so that the fairy wouldn't have a hard time finding it. She even propped the lid open, just to "help out" the little fairy. She nodded off to dreamland, with visions of the tooth fairy appearing in a cloud of pixie dust, to collect the tooth and drop off a few little trinkets!

Ohhhh, the squeals of delight in the light of the early morning, when Kayli discovered the pixie dust left behind on the bedside table, along with a stray white fairy feather, and  the trinkets left in the trinket box:  a pair of Christmas wreath earrings, a Christmas pin, and 2 shiny quarters! 

Kayli asks: "Mom, does this mean I'm growing up?" Yes, my sweet pea, it's one more milestone, which reminds me again how very quickly you are growing up, right before my eyes!