We have one less tooth in the house these days. No, I’m not getting prematurely old. And Maria didn’t wise up and finally slug me. Bridget lost her first tooth.

Like most things around our house, we couldn’t have a simple, sweet moment. There has to be comedy attached to the whole process.

The whole thing happened pretty quickly. I came home from work on Wednesday to the news that one of her front teeth was loose. Eighteen hours later, the sucker had slid right out.

Luckily, Maria was holding the new digital camera I gave her for her birthday just that morning so she could capture the moment, blood and all.

One of my sisters loved getting that picture. Let’s just say Maria hadn’t learned all the settings yet and the picture was very big and very clear. And my sister isn’t that big a fan of blood.

Anyway, a discussion about the tooth fairy ensued. We had discussed the tooth fairy several times before and Bridget was pretty skeptical of the whole idea. Naturally, that changed when her tooth came out.

We weren’t going to rip her off, but we would have avoided the whole cloak and dagger scenario if she had just agreed that the tooth fairy didn’t exist. We had no such luck though.

The job fell to me, naturally, since I would be up the latest that night. I didn’t have to work the next morning so I could pull off the job deep into the night.

Maria and I concocted a plan that would entail a small jewelry box to hold the tooth and a $1 bill. We figured we could convince Bridget that the tooth fairy didn’t have room to store all the teeth she collected.

So I waited until about 11 p.m. to sneak in and make the switch. Two things went wrong. First, the door handle made a noise when I twisted it. Then, I stepped on a really creaky board.

As I approached her bed, Bridget started to sit up and look around. This kid almost never wakes up when we come in her room. Figures that she’s sleeping light the night I need to sneak in.

I played it all off with a hug and a kiss – while hiding the jewelry box behind my back – and went back downstairs to have another beer.

An hour later, I tried again. The door again made a noise and I saw her sliding under her covers as I got close to the bed. I bailed out and went into the computer room for 15 minutes or so.

I knew I couldn’t pull off the original plan. I passed on the whole jewelry box under her pillow idea and figured I’d sneak in for a quick money for tooth exchange. I’d put the tooth in the jewelry box and convince her the next morning that the tooth fairy left the tooth in the hall for her.

The door didn’t make a sound. I missed all the creaky boards. I was two steps away from the bed when she started to open her eyes. No way. I was so close.

I managed to lean forward and give her a kiss while I slid the dollar under the pillow and felt around for the tooth. I mumbled something about making sure the tooth fairy left a dollar and slipped out of the room before she could figure out what I was doing.

It worked. Somehow I pulled it off. Only 19 more teeth to get it right.