Tooth and Nail

My students’ teeth are beginning to fall out. Not in the scary dream way where they shoot out of mouths at high speed or drop out one by one until there are no teeth left, because that would be horrifying. Just in the normal I’m getting teeth that fit my mouth way. It is sort of creepy to think that each one of those kids have two sets of teeth – one showing and one waiting just beneath the gums for their chance at freedom. Gross. I was never a big fan of even my own teeth falling out. The blood taste and the leftover hole were a little too gruesome. But there is something endearing about a little boy trying to talk about and wiggle his tooth at the same. As long as I’m not ever the one that has to pull it out. Pulling teeth will definitely be a Bill job. That and teaching them to drive, but that’s a different story. The part that I love best is when a kid walks in with a big gaping space and yells, “Look!” and hearing their rendition about the Tooth Fairy situation. We have a major argument going on in my classroom about the size of this mysterious tooth-taker. Some kids think she is a normal-size person that puts the teeth in a bag and leaves anywhere from 50 cents to 5 dollars (another interesting debate; parents should really come to some consensus on the price of teeth) while other children believe she is really small and has to use magic to make the teeth disappear. I guess it is logical that kids view the Tooth Fairy differently. She is definitely not as much as a celebrity as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. You can’t pay too much money to sit on the Tooth Fairy’s lap. Maybe that’s what makes her so cool. Every kid has a different image of her and perhaps it causes arguments, but what really matters is that she came, no matter what she looked like, and left a tangible reminder that they are growing up.