My son lost his first tooth about two months ago. I do not carry cash on me, like, ever.

It was 9:30pm on a school night, and my big guy finally got the courage to let me push out his first baby tooth, which had been hanging by a thread. He cried, then was brave, then we had our first lost tooth!

Very excited we called everyone he wanted to… both grandmas, Aunt Becky, Aunt Lins, Aunt Kellie, even Grandma Grandma (great gram). We got out our new tooth fairy pillow we had stashed in the back of his closet for years in preparation for this exact moment. He took forever to fall asleep, then I grabbed my car keys and popped into our van.

As I stuck my debit card in the ATM slot, it occurred to me that there should be a tooth fairy button on the ATM machine, specifically for moms like myself who cannot remember to keep small bills in the house. Even when said moms KNOW this tooth has been loose for two weeks, and already had a craptastic day before this surprise late night event. I would certainly switch banks in order to feel better supported in these little parenting fails. Twenty was the lowest denomination available, so twenty it was.

All the fast food restaurants and usual change breaking places were closed by now, and I was exhausted. Lunches were not packed. I had worked all weekend. I needed to get some sleep. Begrudgingly I took the tooth lady’s overly generous gift and pushed it quietly into my guy’s little tooth pillow. It’s just the first one, we will make it a big deal and then can drastically lower the status quo, I thought to myself.

The next morning Ryan was elated. “Twenty bucks, Mom! Mom, it is TWENTY BUCKS!!” I smiled through my sleep, “That’s great, bud. Just remember, she will not always leave twenty bucks. It was special because it is your first tooth.”

“YEAH! I am gonna tell everyone I know that I got TWENTY BUCKS FROM THE TOOTH FAIRY!” Whooping, hollering, loads of excitement. Me, not so much.

“Uh – no, uh…you can tell them you lost your tooth but we don’t want to brag. Maybe other kids got less and we don’t want to make anyone feel bad by talking about how much-”

He interrupted excitedly, “MAYBE NEXT TIME SHE WILL BRING ME ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS?!?!?! THE TOOTH FAIRY ROCKS MOM. BETTER THAN SANTA!”

Sigh. Set up my own son for failure. Completely unrealistic expectations. And you know what? Happened the second tooth, too.  Embarrassed to say, but the truth was I was still totally unprepared the second time a month later. No lessons learned, no wisdom gained. Just a tired mom who was able to break the change at McDonald’s a bit earlier in the evening with tooth number two. Phew. (Also, the second time I forgot to put it under his pillow. Try explaining why the tooth fairy is so damn lazy that she threw the fiver on the kitchen table and flew off. Not sure how he bought this, in hindsight, but I made it work).

He has two wiggly top front teeth now. It is on my to-do list to grab cash at the bank. I swear, I will, soon. I’ve totally learned my lesson, for sure. No worries. Rest assured. I will go probably tomorrow. Or the next day. Soon.

P.S. My spell check on this post highlighted ‘craptastic’ as not a word. I beg to differ, spell check. You are craptastic at proofreading my stuff. And just goes to show you don’t know me at all. Good day, sir. I SAID GOOD DAY.