Christina Beam: Inflation also grinds baby teeth

My firstborn son is losing his first baby tooth, and it's a big milestone for both of us.

Eli is seven and in second grade, so he's a bit of a late bloomer in the tooth department. After two years of classroom charts with molar-shaped cut-outs marking each child's lost teeth — and Eli drawing a blank while his classmates lisped their way through missing incisors -— this feels like a lifetime coming.

So naturally his first question came in two parts:

A) Will the Tooth Fairy visit, and B) How much will she bring me?

It wasn't a question founded in greed, he was just new at this and curious, as if, "So, what's the going rate for a canine tooth these days?"

"Well…" I said, building anticipation in my voice, "When I was young I got a whole dollar - per tooth!"

His eyes widened.

"Really?" My husband Erik interjected. "The Tooth Fairy always gave me five dollars."

Eli gasped, then wiggled his tooth with his tongue with renewed concentration and fervor.

I shot Erik a look but tried to keep my voice calm.

"Huh. Are you sure you're remembering that right?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Does the Tooth Fairy know that children lose 20 baby teeth? Twenty?"

"I'm sure she does. She is the Tooth Fairy."

"Can the Tooth Fairy do the math?" I pressed. "And does the Tooth Fairy know that we are in the midst of a recession unparalleled since, like, the Great Depression?"

Erik stood his ground. A few days later Eli discovered a second tooth was loose. At this rate, maybe I should ask that Fairy if we can take out a tooth equity loan.

We're also realizing that lost teeth take on an entirely new meaning when you're the parent.

For instance, where do the teeth go?

My Tooth Fairy, who apparently was kind of a cheapskate, saw the exchange as an even trade: She left the dollar, she took the tooth.

But growing up I remember my mom still kept her baby teeth in clear plastic boxes in a jewelry box in her bedroom.

"I thought one of the benefits of the Tooth Fairy was that she took the teeth with her," my dad recalled during a recent conversation about my own son's loose teeth. "Apparently in your mom's house in the 1950s she left them behind, to be put in little boxes and kept forever."

We both agreed it was kind of creepy.

But in this keepsake culture apparently it's pretty common for parents to collect their children's teeth. During a brief online search where I was trying to find out how long it takes a tooth to fall out, I discovered a plethora of baby tooth paraphernalia.

Discerning parents can purchase a baby tooth memory book, a Tooth Fairy bank, a baby tooth scrapbook kit, and a baby tooth organizer which, I'm not even kidding, looks like the classic round case for The Pill.

Thanks, but no thanks.

I kept blonde curly locks of hair from each of my boys' first haircuts. Locks of hair are soft and sweet and endearing. A tooth, not so much. It's one of those body parts — like a gall bladder — that once removed is just as well forgotten.

But maybe that makes me a bad memory-keeping parent.

When Eli finally loses those two front teeth — surely before Christmas — I'll mark the date that each fell out. And maybe the Tooth Fairy will leave them in a sealed envelope somewhere in the house, just in case.

At any rate, Eli will be handsomely rewarded by the recession-proof Fairy who favors the Beam side of the family. And he'll be even more handsome when those new teeth come in.

y firstborn son is losing his first baby tooth, and it's a big milestone for both of us.

Eli is seven and in second grade, so he's a bit of a late bloomer in the tooth department. After two years of classroom charts with molar-shaped cut-outs marking each child's lost teeth — and Eli drawing a blank while his classmates lisped their way through missing incisors -— this feels like a lifetime coming.

So naturally his first question came in two parts:

A) Will the Tooth Fairy visit, and B) How much will she bring me?

It wasn't a question founded in greed, he was just new at this and curious, as if, "So, what's the going rate for a canine tooth these days?"

"Well…" I said, building anticipation in my voice, "When I was young I got a whole dollar - per tooth!"

His eyes widened.

"Really?" My husband Erik interjected. "The Tooth Fairy always gave me five dollars."

Eli gasped, then wiggled his tooth with his tongue with renewed concentration and fervor.

I shot Erik a look but tried to keep my voice calm.

"Huh. Are you sure you're remembering that right?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Does the Tooth Fairy know that children lose 20 baby teeth? Twenty?"

"I'm sure she does. She is the Tooth Fairy."

"Can the Tooth Fairy do the math?" I pressed. "And does the Tooth Fairy know that we are in the midst of a recession unparalleled since, like, the Great Depression?"

Erik stood his ground. A few days later Eli discovered a second tooth was loose. At this rate, maybe I should ask that Fairy if we can take out a tooth equity loan.

We're also realizing that lost teeth take on an entirely new meaning when you're the parent.

For instance, where do the teeth go?

My Tooth Fairy, who apparently was kind of a cheapskate, saw the exchange as an even trade: She left the dollar, she took the tooth.

But growing up I remember my mom still kept her baby teeth in clear plastic boxes in a jewelry box in her bedroom.

"I thought one of the benefits of the Tooth Fairy was that she took the teeth with her," my dad recalled during a recent conversation about my own son's loose teeth. "Apparently in your mom's house in the 1950s she left them behind, to be put in little boxes and kept forever."

We both agreed it was kind of creepy.

But in this keepsake culture apparently it's pretty common for parents to collect their children's teeth. During a brief online search where I was trying to find out how long it takes a tooth to fall out, I discovered a plethora of baby tooth paraphernalia.

Discerning parents can purchase a baby tooth memory book, a Tooth Fairy bank, a baby tooth scrapbook kit, and a baby tooth organizer which, I'm not even kidding, looks like the classic round case for The Pill.

Thanks, but no thanks.

I kept blonde curly locks of hair from each of my boys' first haircuts. Locks of hair are soft and sweet and endearing. A tooth, not so much. It's one of those body parts — like a gall bladder — that once removed is just as well forgotten.

But maybe that makes me a bad memory-keeping parent.

When Eli finally loses those two front teeth — surely before Christmas — I'll mark the date that each fell out. And maybe the Tooth Fairy will leave them in a sealed envelope somewhere in the house, just in case.

At any rate, Eli will be handsomely rewarded by the recession-proof Fairy who favors the Beam side of the family. And he'll be even more handsome when those new teeth come in.

Christina Beam is a former education reporter for the News Republic. She can be reached at christina@christinabeam.com