The Tooth Fairy Ran Out Of Money

You know how children are somehow your genetic miniatures even in ways that shouldn't be genetic?  The first time Mister Man had ice cream, he picked up the bowl when it was empty and proceeded to lick it clean.  I swear he'd never seen me do that, but yet he somehow innately knew that when something's that awesome, you don't let a drop go to waste.

And then there's Little Miss.  Mister Man will let a tooth be loose forever before it finally falls out when there's barely anything left holding it on, simply because he's afraid of the pain - or he has to have me pull it because there's another tooth growing behind it.  Little Miss?  Not so much.  Suddenly late this spring, her two front teeth were gone.  You saw how I had to fake our Christmas card early, right?

I thought we were done with losing teeth for awhile.  And then in the middle of August, Little Miss announced that she had just lost another tooth.  None of us even knew it was loose.  Just like me, the second she got a loose tooth, she worked it until it fell out.  I now had a peg tooth daughter.

I asked if she had any more teeth loose.  She assured me she didn't, and I settled in to have at least a few weeks where I wouldn't have to worry about another tooth popping out.

The night before school started, Little Miss came downstairs with another tooth in her hand.  I stared at her in disbelief, but she truly had another hole where a tooth should be.  We are, by the way, hiring her out as a human jack o'lantern this Halloween if anyone needs one.

I sent her upstairs to put the tooth under her pillow in the special bag we have, as she does each time.  And then we all went to bed.  She said nothing the next morning, and it took me another day before I realized that the Tooth Fairy had not come.

As soon as she headed off to school, I sped upstairs to check on the status of her tooth.  I lifted the pillow only to find ... nothing.  There was no tooth.  I asked her when she got home what had happened, and she simply shrugged.  That's when I found out that she hadn't put her tiny little baby incisor into anything but instead just laid it under her pillow.

The next day, I did a thorough scouring of her room.

What can I say?  The girl likes to sleep with her toys.  All of them (including the cute cat).  I was lucky that she didn't have her rubber duck collection or Toy Story toys in bed with her, as she usually does.  Unfortunately, under no mattress, nor tucked behind no toy, nor rattling inside no mattress was a tooth found.

So now what?  The tooth is gone.  And the Tooth Fairy rule is that there has to be a tooth for an exchange, right?  The wee ones decided that Little Miss simply lost her teeth too fast and she ran out of money.  What's your theory?