Dear Toothfairy

What's a sure fire way to know that your little ones are indeed getting bigger? Losing their first tooth will do it.

How is my baby old enough to lose a tooth yet? I'm pretty sure it wasn't long ago that I was pregnant and pushing that horrible life-saving IV cart around my house. Was it really that long ago that I was walking that crying and screaming sweet-as-honey baby up and down the hallway trying to get her to sleep? I'm sure it was a just a few months ago that I was watching her learn how to take her first steps!

Hmmm...I really must be getting old, my memory is failing me.

Ella has assured me that she is indeed old enough to lose her very first tooth.

It all happened while we were on vacation up at Kabetogama. Ella woke up that morning and said that she could hardly eat her breakfast because her tooth was hurting so much. Upon investigating, I told her that it was going to be coming out today "for sure" because it was just that wiggly. I followed her around like a hawk the whole day. That evening, I asked Nana if she could watch Ella for 20 minutes so I could run to our cabin and get Ben ready for bed. When she brought Ella back to our cabin, she held a baggie out to me and said "Oh...she lost her tooth on a strawberry that she had for bedtime snack". Ugh. After all that work of tracking my daughter all day, she went and lost the thing without me being present. Once Nana left, we jumped and squealed with glee that her first tooth had fallen out...and then once she went to bed and was fast asleep, I cried that I had missed the whole thing.

I know...I'm a sap. An emotional girl who wears her heart on her sleeve.

Once we got home, we got out her tooth container that she had gotten from her G. Auntie Mimi. She has been waiting years to use it. Ella carefully wrote her letter to the tooth fairy...

She really, really wanted to keep her first tooth. It was a pretty cute one, after all. I was kind of hoping the toothfairy would leave it too...since I missed seeing it fall out in the first place and all.
 

Ella had a million questions that night......"How will she know to come to my house?"..."How will she get inside?"..."How will she know which room is mine?"...  I'll spare you the other 999,997 of them. Truly, I never thought she would stop. 

I wasn't even sure that girl would even fall asleep that night...so much excitement pounding through her veins...you could feel the energy in her room.

Ella woke up at the crack of dawn and came bounding in my room. She could barely contain herself. The toothfairy...well, as it turns out, is pretty cool. Not only did she leave Ella a present, but she left her the very fairy that she had been wanting for months. And a personal letter to top it off.

All I could think of was what a mess of fairy dust that little thing had left behind. Ella, however, wouldn't allow me to clean any of it up.