by Nicole Loughan

We’ve hit a milestone, losing the first baby tooth. It was far grosser than I expected. My daughter would sit at the table wiggling her big front tooth until it was hanging by a thread. I could barely look at it without wanting to wretch. Then one day, while I was sleeping, she and dad decided it was time to yank.

When they told me of the pull and the snap at the breakfast table she sucked on a wet paper towel, and I thought I was going to faint. Then I had a new series of decisions. Do I keep this piece of useless tissue or do I send it out in the trash? Also, what’s the tooth fairy’s going rate for teeth these days?

I went to my Facebook mommy network and asked around. Seems like the fairy was giving anywhere between a quarter and $10. When I was little, I feel like we were dealing with paper money when bicuspids went to fairyland. I found some people’s tooth fairy dealt out different payments based on tooth size, a big molar was worth big bills, but those little K-9s were worth pocket change. We decided to give $5 for the first tooth with subsequent teeth to earn only a dollar.

Then there was the matter of what to do with it. I posted on Facebook again and found that about half of my friends are keeping jars of baby teeth, hair and belly buttons in their attic. Including my husband’s mother. She wrote and said she kept jars of all these things and had just months before parted with them. My husband is 37. She held on to dead teeth for more than 30 years. They moved a lot and I wondered if the jar got buckled into the front seat of the moving van like a pet, to ensure its safety. I think that jar of teeth is better traveled than I am.

I was so disgusted at the thought of keeping it I wrapped that little tooth up in a paper towel and said out loud “you are going directly in the trash.” But for some reason, my hand wouldn’t let it go. I lingered holding a tooth over the can and just couldn’t do it. I put it on my highest bathroom shelf and decided I’d deal with it later. Two months have gone by and there it still sits.

Just this morning my little girl ran to me, showing her next tooth is blowing in the wind. She proudly wiggled it with her tongue. She can’t lose another one yet. I still haven’t figured out what do with the last one. If I don’t make a decision soon I’m going to have a shelf full of teeth.

I found several better ideas for saving the tooth. This dilemma appears to be one for many parents. There are tooth saver necklaces for under $8.00 at Oriental Trading Company, wooden tooth saver storage boxes on E-bay for under $5, plastic tooth treasure chests come free from the dentist or even wooden tooth shaped boxes from Walmart. But all of these seem like a commitment to keeping a box of old teeth. I can’t seem to commit either way to tossing or keeping.

I wish I could give you a good bit of advice on what to choose. I wish that reading what my friends did, or what our moms did helped me out. But like many things, when you become a parent these decisions are no longer rational. Before I had children I would have said toss those babies, gross, but now that I have kids my thought process is different, more sentimental.

In our house, we are down one tooth out of a mouth of 20. With two kids that makes 39 teeth yet to go. I hope I make a decision before too long, that shelf is pretty small.

What did you decide to do with those baby teeth?

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