On August 14th, my little girl grew up a little bit. That first baby tooth that we celebrated upon its arrival at around nine months took its final bite, made its final smile and exited her jaw. The last time she took a picture with that sweet little milk tooth in her jaw is right here.
She was terribly anxious about the loss of the tooth. Would it bleed a lot? Would it hurt when it came out?   Why does the Tooth Fairy have to take the tooth? Can we keep the tooth instead? Will she still pay?
It took three days of conversations and questions. During a brave moment while at a dinner party with her friend Sophie, Gigi summoned up all her courage and asked me to pull the tooth. “Are you sure?” I asked her. She nodded her head with tears in her eyes and sat on the stool. Sophie watched from the background as I took a paper towel and grabbed her tooth. It took three tugs, and there in my hand was that perfect little baby tooth.
Gigi and Sophie celebrated with a picture. Sophie took part ownership of Gigi’s tooth loss and tried to speed up her own tooth losing process by aggressively tugging on her bottom teeth.
Gigi relaxed for the first time in three days. She finally had the answers to the questions she had been asking for days. She told me it didn’t even hurt! It bled very little, and that night, the tooth fairy left her tooth behind with five dollars and a book about fairies. A pretty fair trade!
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