Tooth Fairy

“Mum I don’t want to turn six,” fretted Master Six two years ago. “I don’t want my teeth to fall out because then I won’t be fansome.”

“What is fansome?” I asked.

“You know, it’s like when you’re pretty but you’re a boy.”

“Oh handsome!”

The sixth birthday came and went with all teeth still intact until finally several weeks ago, he mentioned it hurt to bite into an apple. He wouldn’t let anyone near his mouth but decided that, yes, the tooth was a bit wobbly actually.

Some kids are “wigglers” and some aren’t, I was told. Master Six definitely fell into the latter camp. In fact, despite the second tooth visibly coming through behind the baby tooth, it became apparent he’d rather pretend the whole thing wasn’t happening.

Because of this, it was all forgotten until Wednesday night, which was a bit of an anticlimax really. He was practicing rugby passes in the, ahem, lounge when his dad noticed a gap in his mouth. Thinking at first we’d omitted to share a momentous occasion I was summoned from bathing the twins.

“Where is your tooth?” I demanded a baffled-looking boy while simultaneously searching around on the floor.

“Well I did notice something crunchy in my sandwich,” was all he could offer.

Okay, he had just eaten a crunchy peanut butter sandwich.

“Do you think you crunched it into pieces or swallowed it whole,” I persisted.

“Crunched it into pieces.”

I dialed the number of a good family friend dental nurse and passed the phone to an increasingly-worried-looking boy who’d probably by now twigged that he had nothing to show to the tooth fairy.

“I swallowed my tooth,” he said feebly into the phone.

He was reassured that it was perfectly common for kids to swallow their teeth and to write the tooth fairy a note to put under his pillow. Or he could wait several days and it would probably come out the other end.

She also reassured that he would not have crunched it into pieces so it was likely to come out the other end whole.

Like the bead that got stuck up his sister’s nose I was keen to tack the first tooth into the baby book but dissecting poo for several days?

Actually, in these days of political correctness, isn’t the tooth fairy a male?

“Not a chance,” said his dad when I put this to him.

Well maybe it was a bit OTT keeping the first tooth after-all.

Yes, I decided, the baby book could do without.

Footnote:

# A local dentist says that when children swallow their teeth, parents often worry the roots have been left behind.

“What they can actually see is their permanent tooth coming through underneath.”

As the new teeth come through the roots of the baby teeth reabsorb until there is only the crown left and this is the part that is swallowed.

 “They needn’t worry. The body can’t absorb it. It will come out the other end and then if you want to look for it then you’re quite welcome.”

A common pattern is for the first tooth to appear after six months and to lose the first tooth after six years, although this is not cut and dry.

Dental therapists encourage children to wiggle out their own teeth and caregivers can call 0800MYTEETH for any concerns.