Tooth Fairy where did you get to?

‘Mummy! That tiny tooth has finally come out!’

It was just before bedtime. Dan was reading Sophie a story. I was lying down nursing Alice to sleep. Charlotte had read a chapter of ‘Harry Potter and the Dealthy Hallows‘ with Dan and was now playing a game on the iPad before switching on her favourite ‘Golden Slumbers: A Father’s Lullaby‘ CD (which I’d bought just before Charlotte was born and she still likes to listen to it now) and drifting off to sleep.

‘That’s great news Charlotte. You’ll have a visit from the tooth fairy tonight!’ I said. ‘Be sure to tell your Daddy.’

She’s had a tiny tooth at the bottom wobbling for weeks now. The adult tooth had long given up hope of pushing out the milk tooth to take its rightful place – rather it had been forced to take a different route, sitting directly behind the milk tooth.

I drifted off to sleep with Alice, thinking Daddy will make sure all is well.

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Morning arrives. Poor Charlotte had been coughing a lot in the night. I’d heard her wake up and go downstairs to look for cough medicine. I’d woken Dan to follow her footsteps and help her feel more comfortable so she could get back to sleep, which she quickly did.

Sophie woke up first, at 6.30am. Alice was still sleeping and I was desperate for any minutes of shut eye available. Dan was fast asleep and I knew Charlotte needed some extra zzzz’s. Sophie took the offer of my iPhone and sat quietly in the bed listening to stories.

Alice woke shortly after and Dan too.

We were all downstairs having breakfast when Charlotte wobbled in with tears in her eyes.

‘The tooth fairy didn’t come!’ she said.

Dan and I looked at one another with a simultaneous look of ‘action stations’.

‘Oh Charlotte love, the tooth fairy must have been. The money probably slipped down the back of the bed or something. Maybe you’re coughing gave the fairy a fright!’

‘But I’ve looked everywhere Mummy!’

Whilst I comforted Charlotte, Dan went up to check.

‘Hey, look what I’ve found,’ he said.

Moments later Charlotte was smiling holding $1.50 in her hand. ‘Oh, it’s not as much as the last times (she’s lost her two front teeth so far), but it was a really tiny tooth,’ she said a little disappointed.

Charlotte reached for the little box where she had put her tooth. The tooth was still there, along with a folded piece of paper which she tossed into the bin.

‘What’s that?’ I asked, reaching into the bin to retrieve it.

‘A letter,’ she said.

‘Oh, is there no reply?’ I asked, glancing at Dan meaningfully.

‘I can’t see one,’ she said, a little sad.

‘How about we have some breakfast and then come back up and have a good look under your bed. I think, with all the coughing and trip downstairs to get some medicine in the middle of the night, the fairies could have been disturbed.’

After breakfast we went back upstairs and had a really good look. Charlotte got down on her hands and knees and, after much searching, we found a note! It had slipped down the side of her bed. It was a tiny note, folded up many times, for a tiny tooth.

Charlotte quickly wrote, ‘Note three’ on it before stashing it with her collection of letters – and teeth. It seems the fairies keep forgetting to take Charlotte’s teeth, or perhaps they think she’d like to keep them.