Photo of the Day: Missing Tooth!

I *knew* that thing was about to come out! It's now imperative we get her to stop sucking on her fingers. Like, immediately.

(No idea how the Tooth Fairy is gonna make it in there tonight.)

You may not know this, but it turns out that tooth fairies actually live in a castles made of teeth. (There used to be just one tooth fairy, but there are more children now than there used to be, so now there are several who work closely together.) I know that sounds a little uncomfortable, but when you are a tooth fairy, teeth are what you know and love best in the whole world, so it's actually quite cozy to them.

But teeth, as you may know, do not live forever, not even with tooth fairy magic to support them! So sometimes a tooth cracks and falls out of the wall of a tooth fairy castle. That, of course, is why she needs your tooth, and all the other teeth she collects each night: after she picks them up — but before bed, so she doesn't get chilly — she puts new teeth in to replace any broken teeth. If she has extras, she works on her addition, which is a room for the tooth-fairy-in-training she plans to take on soon. (She kindly requests that if you know of a likely candidate, you mention her in your letter.) Some of the elderly tooth fairies have quite large castles.

Once she trains a new tooth fairy, that fairy will share the teeth she collects in the first three years with her teacher, just as your tooth fairy did with her teacher. (You need a great many skills to be a tooth fairy, of course. You have to be able to find teeth — she'll find yours, by the way — and also to lift pillows very carefully, and also to keep careful records so as to plan their routes. Occasionally, a grownup tries to scam the tooth fairies by claiming to have lost a tooth, but tooth fairies are wise to this sort of thing.) In this way, tooth fairies have comfortable homes even when they no longer wish to gallivant around collecting teeth themselves. All in all, I think it's a pretty nice job. Don't you?

Beyond our universe, formed from the black nothingness of non-existence, there lives a monster who is older than time itself called Staz. Staz hates our universe and he especially hates all the light and noise and bustle and change. Staz is mad at the universe and wants to put it out. So he cast a mighty spell and unleashed a torrent of caramel towards us. Staz hopes that when the caramel stream hits our universe, it will engulf us all in sticky caramel sweetness and we'll all be trapped, frozen in place by the delicious, enveloping caramel. Then the universe will be stopped dead in its tracks and Staz can be happy.

But the caramel is coming at us from a long ways away and it was spotted and a great hero arose. She is known as Elith the Peckish and she looks a bit like a gigantic shark with legs and green polka-dots. Elith has the power to eat at much as she wants but she never gets full. She quickly flew out beyond the edge of the universe, planted herself in front of the stream of caramel and proceeded to start eating up all the caramel so it never reaches us here.

The problem, of course, is that if you eat nothing but caramel, you'll get cavities and your teeth will rot and fall out of your head. Eltih is a bit like a shark, so normally, she'd just keep growing in new teeth, but there's so much caramel to eat, it's hard for her teeth to keep up. Not only that, but shark teeth just aren't as good at gobbling up evil caramel as the teeth of children. So she enlisted the aid of a loyal band of fairies who will go out and find the discarded teeth of children. The faires then fly the teeth out to Elith and stick them in her mouth to keep it full of caramel chomping incisors, molars, and bicuspids. Since there are always lots of kids losing their teeth, the Tooth Fairies always have a ready supply and Eltih can continue to eat up the caramel stream of Staz. In fact, Elith is eating up the caramel so fast, she's very slowly eating her way up the stream towards Staz himself and if Elith reaches Staz well…*snap* *gulp* yum.

So every time the tooth fairy takes your teeth, you can walk a little taller knowing that your teeth are doing their part to keep the whole universe safe from a sweet cataclysm and bringing Elith one step closer to getting rid of Staz for good.

It's all because of the unicorns.

Unicorns are very beautiful and very wise and very secretive, but they have a great love for human children. Sometimes a lucky girl or boy will see a glimmering light like a small star in the darkness under the trees or in the road, and that light will be the tip of a unicorn's horn.

Fairies love unicorns, too, and only very fortunate fairies get to have unicorn-friends. But unicorns are very secretive indeed, and very shy as well, so fairies have a very hard time finding them.

But if a fairy takes the tooth of a human child, then unicorns will be drawn to the tooth. And if the fairy is very good and very brave, then the fairy can make friends with a unicorn. So a tooth-fairy will come to the pillow of a human child and take away the tooth, and then the fairy may be fortunate enough to make a new friend.

Or not. That's why they need more teeth – every tooth is a second chance.

But if you hear the sound of hooves outside your window, late one night… don't be alarmed. It might just be a unicorn and a fairy, celebrating their new friendship and peeking in on the girl who left the tooth.

I don't remember what my parents told us. But omg, what an adorable picture!

This reminds me of the book Little Rabbit's Loose Tooth – a classic. There's tons of theories of “what happens” to the teeth in the book, but for the life of me I can't remember one! I think she ultimately decides to keep the tooth for herself, though, and wears it as a necklace.

What's the going rate for a front tooth nowadays?

[...] Photo of the Day ← Photo of the Day: Missing Tooth! [...]

Ridiculously, in our house the Tooth Fairy leaves BIG MONEY for front teeth! Like, $10 each! I think the other teeth earn $1 each? There must be something magical about front teeth!

$10 each!? Wow, that's pretty big for a baby tooth, but being the first tooth, I think it's really worth the payment. Also, it's sad that she lost her tooth while she sleeps, which was eventual since you won't be able to stash it for a later date.