Tooth Fairy

I don’t care who you are, when your daughter loses her first baby tooth, it’s an event. Catherine’s lower left tooth had been wobbling in her mouth for a couple of weeks. But today, we finally determined it was loose enough to pull without much pain – for Catherine, or us.

“Brian, it’s ready to pull, I think,” I said this morning after I fed Catherine. Honestly, I was a little squeemish about the whole thing. I didn’t want to cause her any pain, and I remembered a few teeth when I was little hurting a bit more than you’d like. “Why don’t you pull it?” Brian casually asked. “It’s a Daddy’s job,” I concluded, matter of factly. And he must have agreed because next thing I knew, Brian had kneeled down by Catherine and had his hand in her mouth trying to get a grip on the teeny tiny tooth with a paper towel.

Poised with the camera, I recognized her little grimace and laughed just a bit recognizing the right of passage this event marked. And just like every kid who loses a tooth, she put her tongue in the hole immediately. That was my gift from the tooth fairy because it meant she knew what had happened. I wonder what the tooth fairy will bring to Catherine tonight. Today she brought me hope.