Poof! There goes babyhood

I really can’t believe that it’s December already. This year has been….one to remember. I’d classify this year as the year of impossibles becoming possible for so many reasons. The latest to hit home, was how impossible it seems that my kids aren’t babies anymore. More than that – they aren’t even toddlers. They’re preschoolers. They’re kids.

Sunday afternoon I noticed that Little Miss Sunshine’s teeth were getting farther and farther apart. My first thought was how much she’s grown and her mouth is getting too big for her teeth. My second thought was, “I hope she’s not going to need braces!” Later that same day, The Narrator noticed that one of her teeth  was sitting rather crooked. His thoughts were, “either that tooth is loose or it’s broken!” He called her over and checked, and sure enough – her tooth was wiggly. As she wiggled the tooth to show me the impossible, it was like I was watching a slow motion movie. She was 5 months old and those first two teeth were miserably cutting their way through her gums. I was rocking and rocking and trying the homeopathic remedies and the orajel and mostly rocking and rocking and rocking. And now, here she was wide eyed wiggling one of those same teeth. It really seems unfair. For all that work on the part of the baby and the parents and then the teeth only last 4 or 5 years??

And then it hit me. I’m not ready for this! Besides not being emotionally ready to have a child old enough to be getting their grown-up teeth (She’s not 5 until January!!), I really wasn’t ready to be the tooth fairy! These are the things that kids remember the rest of their lives. I’m 32, and I very vividly remember the little pillow that my mom made for us that had a little pocket to hold our teeth. I remember how I’d be sooo excited to put each tooth in that little pocket and wake up in the morning to find money instead of my tooth. What were we going to do? What would be our traditions for losing teeth?  This is important stuff!

The Narrator and I quickly discussed it that evening after she went to bed. Yes, we’d have a tooth fairy – fantasy at this age is just pure fun! Yes, we’d, er she’d, leave money. I read once on a blog where the tooth fairy left $1 gold coins. It’s only $1 and it’s unique. Love it.

On Monday I had to run errands anyway, so I stopped at the bank to cash a few checks and asked for a few gold coins, just in case. I figured I’d keep a few in my drawer that way I’m ready should we have any surprises. Um…surprises. Yes. Good thing I stopped at the bank, because that night during dinner, the tooth fell out! At first she thought it was part of her food until The Nana pointed out that it indeed was her tooth! One day it’s wiggly. The next day it’s gone.

A round of pictures, then a hunt on the hands and knees for the little tooth that fell off the table, phonecalls to my parents in Ohio, and then we headed to the basement so she could pick out fabric for her special tooth pillow. True to her personality, she not only picked her fabric (surprisingly not pink!) and then her coordinating fabric for the pocket, she then told me how big to make it and exactly what stripe to put the pocket on. I sewed it up and then together we stuffed it “just a little bit fluffy.” She put her tooth in the pocket and carefully set it on her bed.

Later that night, after lamenting to my friends on Facebook about Little Miss’s first lost tooth, a friend mentioned how their tooth fairy leaves glitter from the window to the pillow!! So I now have a “tooth fairy kit” in my dresser containing: 2 bottles of glitter, a few $1 coins, and a pill bottle that holds one precious little tooth awaiting her former companions.

And there went babyhood. If only I could bottle it up like I can the teeth.