Five

My Eldest raced to meet me at the front door from my extremely late night at work last night. She beamed a smile. A smile sans an eye tooth on the bottom. In her hand lay the tooth's corpse -- the FIFTH tooth she's lost in her lil lifetime.

She excited narrated the story of how she lost it:

Eldest: MOM! MOMMY!! I LOST A TOOTH!! I LOST MY TOOTH!! LOOK!


Me: OH MY GOSH!! LOOK AT THAT!! I celebrate loudly with her

She giggles wildly.

Me: TELLMETELLMETELLME the story !! I excitedly demand as I put down my purse, take off my coat and collect My Little One, smothering her with kisses all the while listening to My Eldest.

Eldest: I lost it brushing my teeth. <she's jumping up and down now> I was just ...like... brushing like this <she mimics moving her turquoise and purple Princess Jasmine toothbrush back and forth> and then it just came out. And blood started pouring out of my mouth like this <she takes her tiny index finger and points to her bottom lip, tracing the contours of her chin downward>

Me: BLOOD?! Did you get scared??

Eldest: No!

She smiles from ear to ear.

The conversation sways to talk of Tooth Fairy and all that goes along with the Tooth Fallout (pun intended). Upon tucking her into bed, we admired the tooth, gently placed it in a purple velvet pouch and tucked the pouch under her pillow and read the story of the tooth fairy -- which we do each time she loses a tooth.

No barter this time -- all money. Eldest reached under her pillow fresh from her slumber to find some money tucked into the purple pouch -- then tucked into her savings bank.

She beamed her gums in a beaming smile on her way out the door to school this morning -- gums anew with a big-girl tooth barely peeking out.