The Toothless Fairy

Once Upon A Time there lived a little 

Princess called Natalia

"Natalia, I saw your tooth fall out so I came anyway. T Fairy :) "

She lived a very charmed Downs Side Up kind of life with her Mummy, Daddy, wonderful big sister and their 10 happy hens. Natalia had a golden extra chromosome which made her tinier, but no less and no more sweet than her older sibling.

Now Natalia was a girl who loved to do things in her own way and at her own pace. Woe betide anyone who tried to rush her, or indeed lend her too much of a helping hand.

And this was just as true in matters of the teeth as it was in any other of her daily activities. The little pointy white gnashers sat stock still for around a year after her classmates had begun to lose theirs. And when they began to wobble, they did it style. Achingly slowly, twisting and bending, teasing for months. Natalia refused to wiggle them to help them on their way. Instead the new adult teeth pushed their way out behind them, crocodile style. And still little pegs refused to budge.

One day, Princess Natalia had a tumble whilst chasing her friends. She banged her pretty little chin on a bench and those stubborn baby teeth received a knock. A drop of blood could be seen on her lip. But she continued to cling on to them.

Only now they had been shaken beyond the point of no return, whether Princess Natalia liked it or not.

The first one fell out that very evening over dinner. But Princess Natalia didn't make a fuss. She simply popped the tooth at the side of her plate and carried on eating. Her priorities were clear. 

After dinner Mummy and Daddy found the tooth and everyone was very excited. They celebrated the occasion by dancing around the kitchen, clapping and hugging each other just as they did when Princess Mia's teeth fell out. Everyone was proud and perhaps just a little sad, because Princess Natalia was now growing into a beautiful bigger girl, and leaving her babydom behind.

That night, she popped her tooth into the special fairy cushion that has been used for every lost tooth for years. She was tucked into her bed and read a story about the tooth fairy, with pictures of her in it. And as if by magic, in the morning she found a golden coin, the same shiny golden colour as her magic chromosome, and a brand new toothbrush with a handle like a crocodile. The tooth fairy was having a little joke about her double row of teeth perhaps...

The second tooth that had been given a knock was ready to fall out too. Mummy took Princess Natalia to the dentist to check that everything was fine and that profilactic antibiotics weren't needed. The dentist smiled and said all was well. Mummy and Daddy talked a lot about the next tooth coming out, and the cushion hung up to see in her bedroom where she could see it.

However, later that week, as Mummy was helping her to brush her teeth before bed, she noticed that the second tooth was missing! Where, oh where had it fallen out? The family searched around but to no avail. Natalia didn't seem worried and everyone decided that it must have fallen out in the park that afternoon. They tried not to worry about whether it had been swallowed.

Mummy wiped a little tear from her eye. Mia was scared in case the tooth fairy wouldn't come. Daddy was very quiet. Together they hatched a plan, with a little help from their online Downs Side Up friends, who told them that many of them had had mysterious disappearing teeth too...

They left the special pillow out on Natalia's bed, with a tiny note, explaining that the tooth was lost. They hoped that that would be enough for a repeat visit from their flying friend. Princess Natalia cried a little that bedtime and said she was sad, perhaps because she didn't want her tooth to fall out at all, perhaps because it was lost.

But lo and behold, in the morning the tooth fairy had been! She had left another golden coin and a teeny tiny note on which was written in teeny tiny writing 

"Natalia, I saw your tooth fall out, so I came anyway. T Fairy x"

We decided that that meant her name began with T, possibly Tabitha. Everyone squealed with relief.

And so you see, the moral of the story is that having an extra golden chromosome doesn't really change your rights of passage of growing up, like losing teeth and waiting for tooth fairies. They might flutter in through your window a little later in life than they did for your brothers and sisters. You might need what is happening to you explaining a little more clearly, with pictures, but in the end it's the same experience. And some experiences are really worth waiting for.

Mummy x