The tooth fairy dusts off her wand...

My son is over six and a half. A cautious child, he's in no rush to grow up. That's why when his front teeth started getting loose a couple of months ago, he just left them alone.  Oh, he would touch them gingerly now and then, but not much more.

They started to look a little strange.  As I helped him brush his teeth, I could clearly see the new teeth coming in, although the old, baby teeth tried hard to stick around.  By the end they were sticking out at an odd angle, and my husband and I had started to give one another those eyebrows-raised parent looks. 

"When I was a kid," I said, "I knew a kid who tied a string to his tooth and slammed the door to pull it out!"  My husband was shocked.  "Leave him alone," he said.  "It will happen."  And it did.

A week ago, the first tooth fell out. With fanfare, the tooth fairy brought a small red glass heart and some type of European coin with a hole through it (I think.)  It was nice.

Last night, when I was checking his teeth I noticed that the second tooth was missing also. 

"Where did it go?" I asked.  My son shrugged. 
"Did you lose it?" 
"I guess so."  was the amazingly insouciant answer.

And so he drew a note to the tooth fairy.  It's a kid with a full mouth of teeth.  An arrow shows how one tooth has fallen out, and a comic bubble over the boy's head contains a question mark.  Above the picture is laboriously printed:  "I lost my tooth."

This time, the tooth fairy brought him a pokemon wristwatch.  Why?  Because the tooth fairy has no idea how much a tooth is worth in ordinary money -- and neither does our kid.

Later on that day, we drove my son to a neighbor's house for a playdate. This neighbor is a huge athiest, and recently hosted  Richard Dawkins on his "I'm an Athiest and Brilliant" tour.  My son got out of the car, proudly showing his tooth fairy swag, and our athiest friend hightailed it into his house, where I heard him urging his eight year old, dyed-in-the-wool outspoken junior athiest son to "NOT" talk about the tooth fairy.

... Isn't growing up sweet?