You Put the Tooth WHERE?

Emery lost another tooth!

When people hear that my children lose teeth, the first question always asked is, "What did the tooth fairy give you?"

Another confession, I don't do the whole tooth fairy thing - I think that must have been created by people with only 2 children at most ;-)

So inevitably the question gets asked, "Then what do you do with your teeth when they fall out?"

One of the children is usually happy to supply the answer: "We put them in our garden beds. They add calcium to the soil."

At this point, the poser of the question is usually looking at me like I have 8 heads instead of just 8 children.

But what else am I supposed to do with teeth? I can't just leave them lying around, can I? Can you just imagine the chaos that would create? I can see tooth projectiles all over the place. And I am NOT saving all those teeth. That's just gross. I once thought about making a tooth mosaic... (not really, I just made that up :D).

I think the garden bed is a very logical place for them to go. I don't know if they'll actually add calcium to the soil or not, but it sounds good!

And really, what I do with baby teeth is better than what Grandma does with them:

We were in Florida one time when Brett lost a tooth just before breakfast. Grandma put it in a cereal bowl. When Jim and I got up, Brett ran to show us her missing tooth. But the tooth was nowhere to be found!

Grandma had made oatmeal and did the unthinkable: She fed the tooth to one of my children. The children were all horrified. Jim and I were just glad we hadn't eaten any oatmeal!

So, doesn't putting baby teeth in the garden beds sound much more reasonable now?

PJ