You would think after 4 kids the tooth* fairy for this house would pretty much have it sussed.  Yes, historically there have been times when she’s been too busy to remember to come, or the child hasn’t slept deeply enough for her to move the pillow (a particular favourite!) – but she’s generally delivered – and even replied to letters left for her when the lost tooth was actually lost (in reality swallowed!)

The youngest developed her first wobbly tooth on holiday.  I don’t remember any of the others being traumatised – but this time we had hysterical wailing “I want to keep these teeth forever” and a refusal to eat, combined with a stress that the tooth fairy wouldn’t be able to find her way to St Lucia (although she’s been to Dubai and France with us before!)  Anyway – after hanging on by a thread – literally – for the last few days, it finally came out on Saturday morning.

Now, on Saturday evening the tooth was carefully placed under the correct pillow (this worked as quite a bonus, as she’d wanted a sleepover in her brother’s bedroom – but the tooth fairy wouldn’t know that – so own bed it was!)

However, the tooth fairy had been drinking prosecco yesterday evening.

Right – at this point I’m going to stop writing about the tooth fairy as if it’s someone other than me.  If someone is old enough to find this blog via social media, they’re old enough to know that the tooth fairy isn’t real!  Which reminds me of when our eldest went on a school trip to London in Year 6.  One of the girls she was sharing a hotel room with lost a tooth – and D and the other friend sharing the room weren’t sure if this girl believed in the tooth fairy or not – but she put her tooth under her pillow that night.  D and the other friend waited until she’d gone to sleep and then swapped it for some cash.  But they were on a limited budget for the trip, and neither had a spare pound coin, so their friend woke up to a handful of silver coins!!

Anyway – back to last night.  I’d had some prosecco, and gone to bed stressing about remembering to do my tooth fairy bit – as the 5 year old was so excited about the whole thing.  However I then had a very realistic dream about being the tooth fairy (not in fancy dress or anything – that would be a totally different kind of dream) – and woke up unsure if I had or hadn’t actually done the swap!

By this point I was sharing the 5 year old’s bed (it happens most nights – sadly the ‘she’ll sleep through when she starts school’ hasn’t worked 11 months on!)  So, I felt around under the pillow and could find neither tooth nor cash – so was still non the wiser.  I tossed and turned a bit more and was stabbed in the arm by a tiny sharp tooth – so knew I hadn’t done it.  I’d left 2 pound coins (it’s 2 for a first one!) on the landing – so tip toed out to get them, and did the swap.  Phew!

So this morning at 7am we had a VERY happy daughter with 2 shiny new style pound coins burning a hole in her pocket.

* tooth said tuth not t-ooooo-th, as we’re all from Birmingham…..