Two of 'em.

Zella's baby teeth all came in pretty much at once, and it's looking like they'll all be coming out as fast as they went in. She lost her first one yesterday afternoon, and has three more that are "getting wiggly." According to Zella, who knows a lot more about fairies than we do, the Tooth Fairy doesn't need an opening of any kind to get into the house because she uses magic; does not fly (she walks); and does not offer money as a reward for losing a tooth but as a "trade" because she wants the tooth. We did not get into what use she has for children's teeth, because I was not in a macabre enough mood to ask.

Contrary to the persistent rumor-mongering of my father-in-law, the Tooth Fairy does not give $10 a tooth. The going rate is two bucks, and by "going rate" I mean that this is what every child in the solar system gets, so if you are prepared to contradict me, please do so from Alpha Centauri. (As for her peers, Zella is homeschooled, so she has a harder time fact-checking us.) We'll bump it to $3 at some point just to keep her on her toes.

On a related note, it is in fact possible for a five-year-old to lose a tooth, have it float around in their mouth, and not realize the super-wiggly thing had detached from its moorings until Mom says, "Did you lose your tooth?" and has the child fish around in her gumline. Children themselves are magical beings.

I felt like the dad of a "big girl" last night when, at our local pizza haunt, Zella went into the women's bathroom to wash her hands while I went into the men's (she still has trouble opening the heavy swinging door herself but there is usually someone in there who can help her and she can always yell and holler if not) and encountered a father and his three- or four-year-old daughter having one of those one-and-a-half-way bathroom stall conversations where Dad sounds like he has spent several days in a POW camp while waiting for his child to finish going potty.

"I never realized how long it takes to go to the bathroom until I had a child," I said, trying to talk around the subject just enough so the kid wouldn't feel dissed.

"It takes a loooooooooooooooong time," he agreed.

We went through our less-than-ordinary version of another common childhood milestone last month, one that will get its own post next week.


By way of introduction, be prepared for the fact that we arrived at, and went about, getting Zella's ears pierced the way we do most things: with much research and deliberation, plenty of prepping, and in the end by sacrificing time and money we could otherwise have put towards other things in order to take a road less traveled by. For the moment, I'll just say that I have since uttered the phrase "I know you can do this... you got your ears pierced, remember?" more than once, and I think it kind of works.