Thing 1 just lost another tooth.  It only took four for her to learn the tooth fairy is a fake.  This realization came from her little first grade partner in crime.  She calls her Frenchie because she’s French.  Actually my wife started called her Frenchie and Thing 1 adopted it.  You can never start cultural stereotyping too early is what I always say.  My wife only does this with the french though.  Once she came into my office where we had just hired a french strategist.  For some reason he had some chalk or white paint in his hair and it looked like a skunk’s tail.  Without even thinking, she called him Pepe, after Pepe-la-pew, the amorous cartoon character.  He turned out to be a total Pepe. Pulling teeth in my opinion is the dad’s job.  There’s something very frontier-ish about it. It demonstrates courage, confidence and self-reliance in both the puller and the pullie.  Before I go in for an extraction, I usually wait ‘til the tooth is so loose that a good sneeze could knock it out.  By that time I can usually pluck it out by hand but sometimes I use tweeters wrapped with sticky tape for theatrics.  I left this tooth too long because the nanny yanked it out while we were out going to open houses, hoping I find inspiration for floor stains.  I got really upset with her but I didn’t show it.   I want to say, “Hey girl, that’s my job! I’m not paying you to be the hero around here! Go get you own act! Quit giving away the secrets to my magic show!”  The next thing you know she’ll being loosening the lids of apple sauce jars and I’ll be out of a job all together.  Back to Thing 1.  She just wants the money without going through the whole “leave it under the bed” routine.  I agree and ask her if she can break a five.  Is there no mystery left in the world?