11 Tooth Fairy Notes and Traditions, From a Mouse in Spain to a Letter to the Boss

Once, my son got the bright idea to con the tooth fairy. He made playdoh teeth and left them. As he was totally naive about this, he shared his plan with me. He anticipated untold riches! However, the fake teeth only yielded fake money — chocolate coins in gold coloured foil!

I tried to be kind, not revengeful, as a parent!

“A letter to my messy daughter from the tooth fairy”

[Now, with that said, I must be frank. The state of your room prevented us from performing a midnight retrieval. The first attempt almost resulted in tragedy as one of our agents’ shoes got stuck to something icky on the floor. All the commotion alerted a large yellow dog and our agent had to abort the mission. Attempt number two went even worse than that with our agent tripping upon entry and spraining her left dorsal wing.

Since it is the nature of tooth fairies to operate at night (moonlight sustains us), diurnal (daytime) tooth fairies are a grumpy sort, and protest to most tasks. Even those tasks that they were literally named after. Your diurnal tooth fairy was Greta, and due to performing a midday retrieval, opted to pay your fee in change.]

She is 11 and smart as a whip. Super sassy and super messy.

We are usually in 2 to 3 dollar range. The change overflowing was Greta’s way of saying, “Here’s your money kid!”

“Tooth Fairy Visited!”

My kids are growing up with a slightly different version of the tooth fairy. This one finds their teeth by smell, collects the teeth to eat them, and leaves slightly threatening notes. I’ll check back in 10 years and let you know what our therapy bills look like.

“The tooth was delicious. I’ll be back soon I expect more will be ripe. The Tooth Fairy”

“My kid wrote me up”

“Dear Tooth fairy’s Boss,

The tooth fairy I have is lazy. She or he didn’t come last night. So was I up too late or is she or he lazy?

PS, Write back”

My kid did insist that the tooth fairy’s boss is a lady.

My mum would have us put it right next to the pillow. She would make tiny envelopes and write messages reaaaally small from the fairy about her adventures and about her kingdom.

We got to know her ladybug steed, and how it loved the sprinkles we saved out for it one time by the tooth container. Or about how she and some of the other fairies got tumbled right into a tree all night and weren’t able pick up the tooth (when the parents forgot).

She would give many thanks for giving such healthy teeth for the ivory kingdom. She would put mine in the very best of gardens and windows so everyone would see them.

In Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries, a lost tooth goes to Ratoncito Pérez, a little mouse, instead of a fairy. In the story the Jesuit priest Luis Coloma told the boy king Alfonso XIII, Pérez lived in a box of cookies in the basement of a confectionery in Madrid.

In 2003, Madrid put an official plaque on the building at Calle del Arenal 8, where, according to tradition, the mouse lived, and a small bronze statue inside, so that children can come and meet him. Some offices keep a tiny door for him, like the one in this photo.

“My daughter lost her 2nd lost tooth. I guess the tooth fairy does things a bit differently these days.”

She originally asked me to 3d print a tooth but then decided the 3d printed tooth was too cool to give away so she decided to keep it.

She lost the 3d printed tooth as well. Didn’t get a picture.

In France, a lost tooth waits for a mouse. In most French-speaking countries, the tooth fairy is barely known, because it is la petite souris, the little mouse, who comes. French speakers in Canada are the exception: there, the fairy turns up more often.

So a child in Paris and a child in Madrid leave their teeth for a mouse, while a child in Montreal may well be waiting for a fairy.

“I always write tiny tooth fairy notes for my daughter, but in a sleep-induced moment of stupidity this one was just random scribbles. Disappointed that no one can read it, my daughter asked me to post ‘on the dad site’ to see if anyone can work out what it says.”

In Korea, baby teeth used to go up, not under the pillow. According to the USC Digital Folklore Archives, Korean children who lost a tooth tossed it onto the roof, hoping a magpie would take it and bring back a new, permanent tooth. Magpies, the informant explains, stand for good luck and the coming of spring.

In today’s cities, full of tall apartment buildings, the custom is rarely practiced, simply because there are so few low tiled roofs left to throw a tooth onto.

The younger kid lost his first tooth while Mom was out of town, so a quick-thinking Dad, who couldn’t replicate the tiny writing, decided that every kid had his or her own tooth fairy. Youngest kid’s fairy was a giant and instead of miniature notes, he left over-sized notes.