A Milestone

Lauren officially entered the big kid club last week when she lost her first tooth!! Her bottom two teeth in the front have been very wiggly for some time and the new tooth was already coming in behind one of them. The other day she was out on the screened-in porch with Nolan and she came running inside the house screaming, holding the tooth in her hand. We had a little celebration, which was apparently too loud for Nolan because he started crying. :(

The tooth fairy came that night and left her 50 cents, which she thought was pretty cool. As a side note, I never realized how difficult it is BEING the tooth fairy. Ryan was on a trip when this all occured, so it was up to me. I put her to bed at her usual time and figured I would sneak in before I went to bed at 10. Well, she was so excited about the tooth fairy coming that when I opened her door, she sat up and said "hi, mommy". I very sternly told her that it was extremely late and that if she didn't go to sleep, the tooth fairy wouldn't come. So, I then had to set my alarm for the middle of the night, to ensure that she would be sound asleep when I crept in. When the alarm went off at 1:45am, I completely forgot about my plan at first and couldn't figure out why it was ringing. A few minutes later I remembered, stumbled out of bed, grabbed the quarters and headed upstairs as quietly as I could. Of course, her bedroom door sticks, so it made a noise when I opened it. She stirred a little bit and I stood there holding my breath. Thankfully, I had convinced her to put the tooth on her nightstand, instead of under her pillow (because she is such a light sleeper, I knew there was no way I could get it from underneath her head without waking her up). I tiptoed over to the side of her bed, grabbed the tooth, put down the money and raced out...just as she was rolling over and opening her eyes. YIKES!!

The funniest part about it was that in the morning, she proudly came downstairs for breakfast carrying her change with a smile on her face. Then, she proceeded to tell me that she saw the tooth fairy in her room last night. I was surprised (and a little concerned) by this and so I asked what she looked like. She described her as having short blonde hair and said that she was wearing a long blue skirt (I was wearing long blue pajama pants) and a white shirt (I was wearing a white tank top). I had to laugh a little inside. Who knows how long she'll go on believing in the "tooth fairy" before she figures it out. But, until then, I may have to work on my approach and exit! :)

Here's her new toothless grin: