My Polish friend and I were discussing Miss H’s first lost baby tooth at school pick-up yesterday. Miss H’s ears perked up when she heard that the tooth fairy doesn’t come to Poland.

“Does a mouse come?” she asked. “The mouse comes to Spanish houses. The mouse comes to C’s house.”

I told her “No sweetie, the tooth fairy will come for your tooth.”

“But she doesn’t come to Poland!” she said starting to get very worried.

“Yes, she does. She comes to find the Americans wherever they are…even the 1/2 Americans in Poland. She knows where you are, don’t worry.”

(The tooth fairy does actually come to Poland these days, but my friend didn’t know the expanded, multi-national routes of the tooth fairy. She only remembered that there was no tooth fairy when she was growing up in Warsaw.)

These global kids have it complicated sometimes, don’t they?

What DOES the tooth fairy actually bring these days? I remember getting a quarter in the cutest little pillow with a zipper my mom had made.

Spanish kids get toys and Polish kids get nothing (or so I thought). I asked the group of American moms hanging around at the school, and the consensus with this group was $1 per tooth and some small thing like stickers.

Too bad I didn’t keep that cute pillow, and unfortunately there was no time to run out for something special. Miss H and the tooth fairy made the exchange via paper napkins made into envelopes, Polish zlotys, toy rings and gasp…a lollipop. (At least it was sugar free.) But I did let her eat it before school.

‘Momma, I think I heard the tooth fairy last night.”

“What did she sound like?”

“I heard a creeeakk — like a wand near the window. How do you think she got in?”

“Only the tooth fairy knows.”

“I think she used her wings and a wand.”

Always there is something new to learn…who likes kids teeth once they are out of their mouths — a mouse, a fairy, or no one, really;) or simply remembering that kids don’t need a lot to be happy — just a lollipop and a magic wand.