Pearly White Swap

Josiah came to me yesterday afternoon and said, "I lost a tooth." I didn't even know his tooth was loose! "What? You lost a tooth? Did it hurt? Did you knock it on something or did it just come out easily?", I queried. "It just came out.", he told me matter-of-factly, "See?" His mouth is now open to show the hole where his tooth had been. Then I asked him, "Where's your tooth?" He nonchalantly replied, "I don't know. Somewhere in my bed" (Side note: He keeps a lot of things in his bed.) "You better find it so you can get some money for it. You need to put your tooth under your pillow tonight so that you can trade it for some money while you're sleeping" He looked at me quizzically. So I explained, "Um, it's the Tooth Fairy story.... only Daddy and I will be giving you the money."

So off he went to find the tooth; it didn't take long for him to return with it. It is a lower front tooth and it's so tiny! So that he wouldn't lose it, I told him to put it in a sandwich baggie. By this time, the story had grabbed the attention of Nathan and Noah. Nathan suddenly had a loose tooth but it got better. Noah kept walking around with his mouth open as if to show us the status of his teeth too.
Always helpful, Josiah told me the best time to do the switch would be at 10:00 P.M. since he is really asleep then. (That boy is REALLY asleep all night. If there were an emergency, we would have to throw him over our shoulder and carry him outside. And he would still be sleeping.) After the boys went to bed, I searched for loose change around the house. I gathered a dollar in dimes, nickels, and pennies. John retrieved the bagged tooth from Josiah's sleeping grip. I put the tooth in my secret stash and placed the coins in the bag. John finished the transaction by placing the bag under Josiah's pillow. This was our very first tooth trading enterprise and it was successful.

Now I am not only the mother of a first grade student, but my first grader is getting his first adult tooth. *happy sigh*