She’s had several wiggly teeth for weeks now, but there had been little action til Sunday night, when I accidentally (I swear! I felt terrible!) wiggled one a little too hard and moved it into the hanging-by-a-thread neighborhood. Sophie swore it didn’t hurt (I apologized profusely — there was blood, I have to admit) but refused to wiggle it to completion.

Finally, last night, sitting on the bathroom counter with a good view of the whole thing in the mirror, she twisted til she had a tooth in her hand. There was great rejoicing and videotaping and Sophie was really psyched — for a minute.

Then she looked concerned.

She told me she didn’t want the tooth fairy to come in her room to take the tooth. She said she was “embarrassed,” but Ray and I both knew the truth. She was scared.

I was so proud. SMART KID. Seriously, folks, who among us wants a crazy, winged creature coming close enough WHILE WE ARE FAST ALSEEP to actually reach under our pillows and grab a small object? Scares the shit out of me, just thinking about it.

“No problem!” I told her. “We’ll write a note.”

She wrote it herself, and only needed help with a few words.

Dar Tooth Fairy

Come to the living room. Do not come in my room.

Love Sophie

We posted it on her bedroom door and put the tooth fairy box on the mantle. Then Annabelle announced that she wanted to write to Sophie’s tooth fairy, as well. Poor Annabelle, she hasn’t lost a tooth in a while. I figured that by now she was completely over the tooth fairy, but I wondered a bit when I read her note:

Dear sophie’s tooth fairy, I haven’t wrote to my fairy in a long time. So I’m talking to you… Sophie is a genorous and loving kid, you will like her. I’m Annabelle, her older sister. I’m nice, and in fourth grade. Please leave Sophie Olivia the pig toys. Got to go!

“heart” Annabelle

PS look in the box!

I know I’m biased, but that note just killed me. (And I didn’t have any Olivia toys on hand, damn it.)

Both girls had fairy-dusted (thanks to Martha Stewart’s glitter collection) letters from Tallulah Fairbanks, Sophie’s tooth fairy, waiting for them this morning. Annabelle checked out her personalized stationery — purple, but otherwise just like her TF’s pink stationery — and announced, “They must be in business together!”

Yes, as Tallulah explained in her note to Sophie, she’s in training with Annabelle’s TF, Tabitha Fairchild. She also told Sophie not to be afraid, explaining, “I’m not scary!”

But I have a feeling Sophie will keep that note on her bedroom door.

And like I said, I can’t blame her. This morning I was thinking about the whole thing, and pondering the fact that Sophie’s afraid of the tooth fairy, but not at all hestitant about throwing her arms around Chuck E. Cheese. I’m a little scared of Chuck E. myself. (Plus, consider the germs on that costume!) Then I remembered the Yo Gabba Gabba tooth fairy video, which Sophie’s insisted on watching almost every morning all summer long.

Amy Sedaris as the tooth fairy. Yeah, I’d be scared, too!

(Darn YGG, they disabled the embedding feature on YouTube. But here’s the link. It’s worth it. Might give you nightmares, though. And for the record, I LOVE Amy Sedaris — just not in this role.)

It finally happened. Sophie has a loose tooth.

Two, actually. Both her top front teeth are loose. She was so excited when I point this out that she did that thing where her whole body vibrates, and all day long, she grabbed people’s hands and tried to shove them in her mouth to wiggle the evidence.

I discovered the top loose teeth yesterday morning when I was investigating the bottom. Nothing loose there, not at all, but clear as day, a permanent tooth is coming in behind one of Sophie’s lower front teeth.

This freaked me out until a friend said, “Oh yeah, shark teeth!” And the other friend at the dinner table confirmed the phenomenon; both her kids had them. The first friend went on to say that her brother in law — a grown man — still has two of his baby teeth. He’s got two sets of eye teeth; a nice party trick.

Fascinating.

Usually, my friends said, they do wind up having to pull the baby teeth. Humans are not sharks. OK, but I can tell you this much: They are going to have to give both Sophie and me a lot of nitrous if she needs a tooth pulled.

I’d rather think about Tooth Fairy preparations. I still haven’t decided — should Tabitha Fairchild serve as both Annabelle and Sophie’s tooth fairy, or will Sophie’s TF have a completely different persona?

Tallulah Fairbanks does have a nice ring to it….

It fell out today.

And not a moment too soon, since it’s been hanging by a thread for days. It finally came out at school with some advice from a friend (“Pull it!”) and two complete twists. When I heard that, I swooned — and not in a good way.

I advised Annabelle to ask Tabitha Fairchild just one question tonight. “Save the rest for the next tooth!” I said, warning she was going to run out of things to ask her tooth fairy. But every time she’d finished, Annabelle came up with another question; she wound up with six:

Are you married? (No, but I have a boyfriend)

Do you brush your teeth? (Of course!)

Will I ever see you? (Crap, forgot to answer that one)

Do you have a tooth fairy? (Yes, she brings me hair accessories)

Do you have parents? (Yes, I’m very lucky, they’re very nice!)

Now for the glitter and the silver dollars and the note and the barrettes I snuck to Walgreens for and the nervous breakdown inducing tooth removal. Wish me luck.

Quite a bit happened today, not all of it good, so I think i’ll focus on one of the pure, joyous moments of childhood and parenthood: the loss of a tooth.

This was Annabelle’s third tooth. Sophie insists she has loose teeth that are going to fall out “in 15 minutes” but so far, only AB has got the toothless grin going. Not so toothless, not yet. She’s got a wiggly top one, but this was her third bottom in a row to fall out (rather, be tugged out, from all accounts of what went down in the classroom).

She was beyond ecstatic, anticipating the arrival of the much-celebrated TF, which doesn’t just stand for tooth fairy.

When Annabelle’s first tooth fell out, I consulted with my Mom Brain Trust, Trish and Deborah.

Trish, the parent of two tween/teen types, gave me her drill: A dollar for the first, two for the second, and so on. Of course you must give silver dollars. (I hope a reasonable facsimile counts; the bank didn’t have REAL silver dollars the day I went to lay in a supply, a few months back. These are some sort of Susan B. Anthony thing. Or was that the $2 bill? Anyhow.)

Deborah’s daughter, Anna, filled Annabelle in on the rest, namely that everyone has her own individual tooth fairy, whose name will be revealed the night of the first visit. Anna’s TF is named Yoko. (If you know Deborah, you’re nodding right now, saying to yourself, “Of course Anna’s tooth fairy is named Yoko.” Deborah’s that cool.)

I forgot about the name thing, The Night of the First Tooth, and had just finished sealing the card (a very special first tooth card, given to me at least a year before by my friend Cyndi Coon, whose www.laboratory5.com designs are to die for, and set aside for this very occasion) when Annabelle appeared in the kitchen doorway, announcing she just couldn’t sleep til she’d written her tooth fairy a note, asking her name.

I’d already signed the card “Love, T.F.”, so I struggled to come up with an appropriate name, which I added to the outside of the envelope. It’s not cool, but Annabelle loves the name Tabitha Fairchild (after all, the child is named Annabelle) and she speaks of her, once in a while, even when she doesn’t have a loose tooth.

This evening, though she should have been prepared, it took Tabitha a good half hour to locate those aforementioned dollar coins in the depths of the kitchen cabinets, and even longer to answer what has turned into a ritual list of questions that are getting harder, I notice. Tonight’s included:

What did you mean when you said you were older than the moon and the stars? (A lady never reveals her exact age!)

Are you fancy or casual? (Very fancy, of course.)

Do you have pets? (A buck toothed bunny rabbit.)

What do you look like? Why can’t I see you? (I really can’t be seen since I’m magic, but close your eyes and imagine a collection of sparkling diamonds with wings, and you’ll be close.)

Do you use the door or the window? (Neither!)

Now I must practice the most terrifying task of parenthood, the Removal of the Tooth from the Bedroom. How will I not get caught? I’ve also got to leave the envelope with the note, along with instructions to look under Izzy’s food bowl for another prize (since the cat recently lost a mouthful of teeth herself), the dollars, and a new hair accessory, because if she’s anything, Tabitha is stylish.

I’d say wish me luck, but I know that tonight I couldn’t be luckier. Best I can tell, this is what it’s all about.