All I Want for Christmas...

...is my two front teeth. Ok, well just one really. And not for me, but Alyssa. She lost her first tooth this weekend. (And is already sick of people singing her this song.) I was completely unprepared for this. On Friday afternoon she went to play at her friend Brooke's house. When I came to pick her up the first thing she told me was that she had a loose tooth. Really? She's been feeling her teeth for a while now and nothing was moving. She even asked me recently when she will lose her first tooth.

I felt the tooth and sure enough it was wiggling significantly. Brooke's mom, Sara, came over and explained that they had been playing tug-of-war with a bead neclace in both of their mouths when it slipped from Alyssa's teeth it caused that tooth to become a bit loose.

So all day Saturday she wiggled it and asked me a hundred questions about how it would feel and when it would come out. I thought it may come out in a week, maybe. But by the end of that night and a few tears later (from eating things that bumped it and caused it to come more loose) it was pretty much hanging on barely. Because of this I expected a pretty miserable day the next day. Alyssa is a wimp. She can barely handle a sliver and wont let us near her if she suspects any pain (which is why she was hysterical when she injured her finger last week. Although in the aftermath of the injury she's been pretty tough.) I was worried she would have trouble eating and I knew that letting us pull it out was probably not an option.

Fast forward to Sunday morning at about 7:30 am. I'm sleeping in my nice warm bed when she comes running up the stairs, jumps into my bed and shows me that her tooth had fallen out during the night! Wow! We dodged the bullet there--not having to pull it out and that she didn't swallow it. Hoorray. She was so excited that we had an Army Reserve Christmas party and she could show Jason and we had a family Christmas party and she would be able to show Grandma and Grandpa.

So, last night we carefully put the tooth under her pillow in a plastic baggy. This morning she came upstairs and got in with me. I asked her if she looked under her pillow. She had forgotten. She went downstairs and I followed to look for something else. I could hear her in her room crying. When I went in there she was sitting on her bed with her pillow moved and no money laying there. Huge tears were streaming down her face. How could this be? I KNOW the tooth fairy left something there last night. I looked around and found it on the floor. Her reaction was, "that's all?!" She was a bit dissappointed at the amount the toot fairy left (which I will reveal later). I thought was decent and more than Jason wanted to leave. Maybe I didn't make it clear to her what to expect from the tooth fairy. Now she wants to leave a note for the tooth fairy that she'd like her tooth back so she can keep it. By the time she actually left for school she seemed fine with what the tooth fairy left. But it has left me thinking.

So...I'm leaving a poll on this blog for all of you (yes even all of you lurkers out there who read this blog and NEVER comment) to vote on. I want to know how much the tooth fairy should leave for a tooth.

This all happened so fast I wasn't prepared for it. When I was little we had a special pillow with a pocket on it where we left our tooth and then that is where we found our money. I'd like to do something like that but not sure and wasn't ready for it this time. What "traditions" do you all have when you lost your teeth or what do you do with your children?