Dear Elliot,

I snuck into your bedroom and carefully carried the glass of water with your ninth baby tooth sitting at the bottom. I would have never known that it was the ninth tooth you had lost, but you knew.

You love numbers and weirdly count everything. It’s your funny quirk, this whole number thing. We are all in awe of how you can never find your shoes and forget to shut the car door EVERY SINGLE TIME you get out, but somehow in that brain of yours, you can tell us everyone’s birthday and ages, including the age of your dead grandfather if he were still here.

As I tipped the glass upside down and watched your ninth tooth slide down the drain of the bathroom sink, I wondered if this would be the last time I was going to play the tooth fairy. I sensed a difference in your reaction that night as I tucked you in, excitedly telling you how the tooth fairy would be visiting. Maybe you had twigged? “Did you know the secret?”, I wondered.

I’ve been the tooth fairy over 40 times. I can’t remember tipping out 40 teeth, or hunting for coins to fill the glass where those precious teeth sat… but I must have. You will eventually find out that I’m the one who filled the glass with coins, and just like your older sister and brother, you will stop putting your lost teeth in a glass of water and just hit me up for some cold harsh cash instead.

I was told by one of my dearest friends that motherhood was a process of letting go. It starts with your children leaving your body and from then on it is incremental steps of release.
I now understand why I have heard fellow mums trying to convince their children that Santa was real and “if you don’t believe you won’t receive”. I never understood that until now. I never knew the bittersweetness. I never knew it until it was my last. Until it was you. My last one. My baby boy. My funny little man who we took a huge gamble to have. No wonder the baby of the family gets spoilt. It has nothing to do with you but has everything to do with me, as I stand at the bathroom sink, playing the tooth fairy for possibly the last time, letting go of yet another piece of you and your childhood magic. Letting go of a piece of me and motherhood. No books or advice can prepare you for the ride of sweet agony you feel when your children grow out of childish things.

I groan when people say that “time goes by so quickly” and you need to “enjoy every moment”. Like most mums, there have been times where motherhood hasn’t been enjoyable. A lot of it can be a hard slog. So much if it is exhausting and relentless. Hanging in the back of my mind though is that one day, I will tip that last tooth down the drain. I will pick you up and tuck you into bed for the very last time. You will no longer slide next to me, in the middle of the night needing comfort from a bad dream. Before I know it, you will be standing taller than me while I ask you how to use my smartphone.

I wish I could freeze time for a while… not forever, but just long enough so that I can catch my breath and soak you in just a little bit longer….my baby boy, with nine teeth down the drain.

Mum