On Monday evening, Brock surprised us when he disappeared into his bathroom and minutes later, shouted, "Mom, I just lost a tooth!" I knew he had a loose tooth, but the last time I wiggled it, it was only a "little loose," as Brock would say. So, we pulled out the tooth fairy pillowcase, tucked the tiny tooth in the pocket on the pillowcase and Brock anxiously went to bed, on time that night, in anticipation of whatever surprise the tooth fairy would leave for him. At 11:30pm, he came bounding into our room, waking us both with squeals of "The tooth fairy was here, mom!" With his four quarters in hand, I re-tucked Brock into bed and said goodnight. I imagine it took some time for him to drift back to sleep.
The next day warranted a visit to the dollar store as the shiny quarters, courtesy of the tooth fairy, were understandably burning a whole in his pocket. He chose a blue recorder and played it (mom shudders at the memory) all the way home, where it promptly broke (this is where mom smirks). Big shocker, right?
Then, a curious thing happened.
Last night, I tucked Brock into bed at 7:30pm, like usual, and decided to take advantage of a warm shower. When I got out of the shower, I heard Brock shouting from across the house. Rolling my eyes and throwing my hands up in surrender ("You're supposed to be in bed!"), I padded across the living room to where Brock was standing in his bathroom.
"I lost another tooth!!" he sang happily.
"W-w-w-hat? Another one?" I was admittedly baffled as I was unaware that he had any other loose teeth. Yeah, bad mom moment confession.
But there it was, another pearly tooth clutched in Brock's pudgy hand. He giggled gleefully at my astonishment. "Let's call daddy!" Brock was dancing merrily around the bathroom with his tooth as I tried to recover from my shock. Daddy was at scouts. And Brock was up 45 minutes past his bedtime.
We pulled out the tooth fairy pillow again and I did my best to settle my enthused 5-year old and bid him goodnight once again. Then, I whipped out my phone and texted Clarke in a panic, "Do you have a dollar bill???" Luckily, he did. Whew!
And just as he had done several nights before, Brock woke up in the middle of last night, bounded into our room, waving his dollar bill and announcing that the tooth fairy had visited again! I rubbed the 3am sleep out of my eyes, took my goofy, grinning, toothless child by the hand and tucked him back into bed.
And first thing this morning, I made sure to check each and every tooth still left in Brock's mouth for any loose culprits sure to break the tooth fairy should any more fall out this week.
