Gamma’s lower left incisor was loose. This was very important to her since she wants badly to go to school and any sign of maturity is welcome – learning the alphabet, counting to 100, wiping her own butt, losing baby teeth.

Gamma was asleep in bed last night and the rest of us were sitting in the kitchen talking. Alpha told me to remove the pigeon wings from the back yard where the cats had left them. I said I’d do it in the morning when it was light and besides, maybe they were angel wings. Beta said, “or the tooth fairy!” She said it with the necessary diabolical tone in her voice and she and I had a good laugh, aware that we could never say such a thing in earshot of Gamma, for whom the tooth fairy is a new and fascinating character she is looking forward to meeting.

So we were in a big hurry this morning. I was brushing Gamma’s teeth and somehow remembered her loose tooth and checked and all that I saw was a new gap. Naturally, as an experienced father, I panicked. I closed the drain and had her spit and luckily there was the tooth. It would have been tragic if she’d spit it down the drain or swallowed it.

She’d been very afraid of swallowing it. “Are teeth poisonous?” she asked us.

She was proud of losing her first tooth. It was not easy to get her away from the mirror, where she stood admiring her new gap. I had to lure her away by telling her to show the tooth to her mother and put it under her pillow. Then I got her out to the car by telling her we had to leave so the tooth fairy could come and leave money, and also by pointing out that she could go tell everyone in daycare about losing the tooth.

“I’m mature!” she tells everyone she sees. I’m worried she’s a little too mature, she’ll only be 5 next month, this seems early to be losing baby teeth. But I think I remember her big sister Beta losing a first tooth early, and then a long time elapsing before she lost any more…