What To Do With The Tooth Fairy's Collection Of Teeth

With two kids, the Tooth Fairy has been at my house a lot over the last ten years. In fact, she came the other night after my 10-year old begged me to yank her latest loose tooth. I've been collecting these pearly whites in envelopes for years and it begs the question:

What does the Tooth Fairy do once she has all of a kid's teeth?

What will the tooth fairy do with this tooth?

I polled the 2,350 members of my Mothers' Loop and here's what they said:

• Put them in envelopes with the kid's name; some people listed the date the kid lost the tooth.
  
  
• Put them in a baby jar.
  
  
• Hide them in a drawer.
  
  
• Throw them out.
  
  
• Put them in the Tooth Fairy Bank, a specially-made, showpiece-quality receptacle that has individual compartments for each tooth. You can even list the date the tooth was lost. Learn more about it here.

The Tooth Fairy is a'coming!

If they're “fresh” enough, you can save them to treat diseases later in life (like you would do with a child's umbilical chord). Learn more about procedure, which must be done pretty quickly after the tooth has come out, here.

For me, throwing the baby teeth out feels wrong. These pearls are a part of my kids' babyhood. I guess I could put one or two in their scrapbook. I may even put one from each kid in a locket.  In any case, I'm going to keep them, at least until the kids' grow up.   I want to show them how tiny their baby teeth were. These small relics are tangible evidence of the fleeting, magical time when my kids were (and one still is) little.

What are YOU going to do with your child's baby teeth?