For the past couple of months, our six-year-old daughter has gone through most of the day with one of her index fingers in her mouth, wiggling a tooth in the hopes that she would finally lose one. Countless admonitions (“get your dirty hand out of your mouth!”) to no avail. You see, our older daughter lost her first tooth at age five, closely followed by a second tooth at the same age. So the little ‘un feels like she has to play catch up. I suppose it was ever thus with siblings.

Lo and behold the other day I reached in and had a wiggle and one of the lower front teeth was ever so slightly loose. Progress. Then in the past week out of nowhere this big honker of an adult tooth broke through behind that little tooth and started shooting up like Jack’s bean stalk.

This led to more wiggling, which led to more looseness, until finally two nights ago I determined that the tooth was so loose it might be time to help it on its journey.

“You know,” I said, “I could get that pretty easily if you want me to.” She grinned and said “do it.” I admired her spunk and courage. So I grabbed a wash mitt, dampened it, and did the ole grasp that sucker with a damp cloth and twist routine. Quick and (relatively) painless. Though of course there was the requisite blood mixed with saliva which always gives the appearance of more blood than is actually there.

Out that little blighter popped. Naturally, now that the moment was upon us, the special tooth box was nowhere to be found. So we put the delicate thing in a cupcake-shaped box with a hinge, along with a note, drafted by the older daughter, acknowledging that the extraction was “very painfull [sic]” and “could you please give me some fairy dust.”

The cupcake box was gingerly placed under her pillow, whereupon my child rested her head on the pillow and squeezed her eyes tightly shut so that sleep would befall her as soon as practicable and the Tooth Fairy (hereinafter sometimes referred to as the “TF”) would arrive. In the night, the TF visited. She deposited into the small box one pound, a tooth-shaped note and some fairy dust. While we all slept, of course.

The next morning we were awakened by a small voice attached to a small face. I blinked and came to, waiting for my eyes to focus. The small face wasn’t smiling. In fact it looked… rather surly! A little hand slapped the pound coin down on my mattress and that’s when the scowl came into focus.

“What is it, sweetheart?” I asked the child. “The Tooth Fairy only left me a pound,” she said. “Such and such (name protected for important reasons) got twenty pounds for his first tooth. Twenty!” I was momentarily speechless. (Yes I know — a real shocker.) I mean she might have even had her hands on her hips. But I don’t remember.

Ummm, are you fucking kidding me? Twenty pounds for a tooth? It wasn’t even a molar. “Well, sweetheart,” I said, “a pound sounds pretty great to me. And oh look; you got fairy dust as well — how cool!.” She brightened a bit. I told her to put that pound right in her piggy bank and that cheered her further.

After she left the room I allowed the ridiculousness of the situation to sink in. I mean, come on, people. Twenty quid for a fucking tooth? What the hell is wrong with you? Why don’t you just buy the little smeller a Mercedes right now and be done with it. Since when was the tooth fairy really about the amount of money involved? Ridiculous. Preposterous. Disgusting.

Oh and if your TF routinely overpays for lost teeth and you are reading this right now you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You aren’t doing your kid any favours overdoing it like this. You have to give a child something to look forward to, for crying out loud. Even when my older child had her canines pulled out, which was in fact painful and unpleasant, the TF brought only five pounds per tooth. Not twenty. Geez. “Oh here, Sweetie, you lost a tooth, here’s a ski trip to Gstaad for you and five friends.” WTF.

But wait there’s more. I have a larger point to make. That being, it sure is lovely to be around to witness milestones such as my younger child’s loss of a first tooth. I am sorry if that sounds corny and cliche, but after the past year and five months, anything of this nature takes on a different level of significance for me. I cannot help it.

I bask in the glory of the moment, delight in the ordinariness of this little slice of life, this right of passage. And here my child’s initial outrage at the perceived inadequacy of her prize made me relish that moment even more. I found it absurd, somewhat troublesome, yet amusing all at the same time. And then my mind did this thing it does where time suddenly fast-forwards and I see her picking out a wedding dress, with me standing beside her. Noticeably older, perhaps thinner and a little diminished in stature, but still very much present.

And that, my friends, that… is priceless.