Shortly after my son lost his first tooth, he began asking what the tooth fairy did with the teeth she collected. His kindergarten mind grappled with how the tooth fairy made the money that she left under children’s pillows at night. Since I had no ready answers, I let him ponder.

That Halloween, our dentist offered to collect Halloween candy for the tooth fairy. Each child who turned over his trick-or-treat loot could choose a toy from the dentist’s toy box. After my son reluctantly parted with his colorful assortment of fun-sized candy bars, he smiled knowingly. In the car, he announced that the tooth fairy must sell the Halloween candy and use the profit to fund her nighttime pursuits.

“But what does she do with the teeth?” he asked.

The truth is that the teeth, at least his teeth, sit in a little box on my dresser.

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with the teeth after stealthily snatching them from beneath his pillow, so I stashed the first one in the box until a better idea came along. That was six years ago. The box filled with pairs of upper and lower incisors, bicuspids, and molars. And now that my son has just one more baby tooth to loose, the box will soon hold a complete set of baby teeth -- save the one my son swallowed in the car when he was six.

Other moms I know simply toss their children’s teeth in the trash. But I couldn’t dispose of them so causally.

The teeth serve as proof of my son’s steady growth, more tangible than a photograph.

Those bits of bone are physical evidence that the adolescent, who has the same size foot as me, was once just a little tike with a single toothed, jack-o-lantern grin. Like tiny pearls stringing together my son’s childhood, these relics represent the transition from a five-year-old’s steadfast belief in the tooth fairy to an eleven-year-old’s willingness to consciously suspend disbelief for the sake of his younger sister.

For now the teeth will stay put. I don’t anticipate turning them over to their rightful owner any time soon. And as for my seven-year-old daughter, I don’t have the same dilemma.

While she’s fascinated with the idea of the tooth fairy, she refuses to place her baby teeth under her pillow. Instead, she lovingly stores them in a box on her dresser, right where they belong.

By Tina Bournazos

Labels: childhood memories, dentist, money, Tina Bournazos, tooth fairy

Stumble This Post