toothless

Lots of excitement....lots of drama....lots of tears (mostly hers because of the blood...but some of my own, too, when she wasn't looking--I hate this growing up stuff!)

First this....

Then this...

Then this!  (ice cream to celebrate)

The tooth fairy came last night and left two dollars (one for each tooth) and a note telling Rachel that she could keep her teeth (Rachel wrote the tooth fairy a note last night asking if she could keep her teeth.  She saw it on "Super Why" months and months ago, and told me that when she lost her teeth she would write the tooth fairy a note, too, asking to keep hers, so she did!). 

This morning Rachel went out to the bus stop and told some of the other kids that she lost her teeth and that the tooth fairy had come. One of the older kids immediately told her, "The tooth fairy isn't real."  Rachel insisted that she was, and the older kid told her she'd understand when she was older.

Inwardly I gave the kid a punch in the nose.  Don't you dare mess with my little girl's innocence like that.  I know it's bound to happen sometime, but do you really have to knock her down her very first morning???  I'm still upset about it. (Okay, so I know I did the same thing to you, Jennifer, when I found out about Santa, so it's probably a taste of my own medicine, but does it really have to happen to my own little girl????)

She walked away and went to a friend of hers and told her, seemingly unaffected by what he told her.  Oh, how I just want to wrap her up in a bubble of protection and keep the world out of her eyes, her ears, her mind.... 

This letting go thing is the hardest thing I've ever done.