My 5 year old son lost another tooth today. He carefully preserved it and brought it home, and popped it under his pillow to wait for the tooth fairy. When it came bed time, he lifted up the pillow to show me, only to discover it wasn't there. He whipped the pillows off the bed, threw the blankets everywhere and lifted up the mattress to find this tooth. Naturally he started crying. "I'm very upset.I won't get any money now" he sobbed.
After 10 minutes of hysterics while Son and Dad searched the room, he finally calmed down. So I went in to read him his bed time stories. I glanced around and spotted a small white object stuck in the carpet. Upon picking it up, I discovered I had found the missing tooth. Suddenly he was smiling again.
So I decided to find out where the tooth fairy came from, how long had she been around. Guess what - she is barely 100 years old.
The tooth fairy as we now know her didn't make an appearance until the early 1900s, as a generalized "good fairy" with a professional specialization. The child loses a baby tooth, which is put under the pillow at night, and the tooth fairy exchanges it for a present, usually money but sometimes candy.
Belief in the Tooth Fairy is generally short-lived. Though the last baby teeth usually aren't lost till age 10 or 11, most children no longer believe by 7 or 8. Parents frequently play out the game anyway and their kids fully expect them to – there's money at stake.
And that's the tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth.
When he finally discovers that there is no tooth fairy, I'm stopping the payouts.
Apologies for this post not being book related, but I had to vent.
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1 comment:
The toothfairy is due at my house too at the moment.
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