One Sacagawea dollar per tooth

The tooth fairy in our house leaves a Sacagawea dollar for every lost tooth, and when the kids were about six or seven that shiny golden coin felt like a much bigger deal than a paper dollar. It still does. One coin, one tooth, and we are not digging through a wallet at bedtime.

We bought a roll of twenty-five from the bank and keep it somewhere safe, which turns out to be plenty for a long stretch of loose teeth. When someone has left a tooth under the pillow, we already know where the next dollar is.

We pack a few of those coins in our emergency travel kit too, because lost teeth do not wait until you get home, and having them along has come in handy more than once on a trip.

Before we started packing them, our oldest lost a tooth while we were away, and we had to invent a story that the tooth fairy only knew our house, so we should keep the tooth and put it under the pillow when we got back. That got us through the trip, and we have traveled with the coins ever since.

It is a small habit, but it takes the scramble out of a lost tooth. Same shiny dollar every time, ready at home and ready on the road.