Herding Squirrels: What do I do?

My daughter came home from her dad's house yesterday, giggling with glee. "MOM! I lost my other toof!" Running toward me, holding up a Ziploc baggie with appeared to be a small corn niblet inside, she ponders loudly the possible worth of the thing to the Tooth Fairy. Then off she goes, showing her even-gummier smile to anyone within earshot.

Fast forward to 5:30 a.m., soft sighs of slumber slip from Syd's room as I exit, having just secretly purchased her top, front tooth. Examining the tiny bit of ivory, I recall the joy of its appearance in our lives and the many happy memories since its arrival, blah blah blah lovingly place the tiny gem in a keepsake box blah blah blah WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS THING?

... and that's where my adoration and musing ends. I stare at the various cardboard ring boxes in my top drawer, two of which hold my older boys' baby teeth. And now I have Sydney's piling up in a little box of her own. I have, quite literally, a drawer full of teeth, all of them real, none of the mine. If someday I decide I want to make a statue using discarded human remains, I'm set, mouth-wise. Honestly, I had no idea what people did with these things. I mean, throwing away part of my child's body just feels weird. But hanging on to a little box filled with their DNA feels equally strange.

I wanted to hear what other moms had to say, so on my blog I posed the question: What did you do with your child's baby teeth?

The responses:

Disinterested: "Tossed them out."

Sacred: "Buried them in the ground."

General agreement: "Kept the first one, and discarded the rest."

Too far? "I saved my oldest daughter's teeth AND umbilical cord and these were put into her baby book."

Waaaay too far? "The umbilical cord is a little gross for my taste. Anyone saving the foreskin? No?"

A scolding: "Just be thrilled you still get to be a TOOTH FAIRY.

I give up.

Looking back at the saved teeth, I'm suddenly quite grossed out.

The burying idea somehow feels right. But then again, so does stringing them into a necklace.

Ivory is worth something, right?

Traci Arbios is a mom, stepmom, adoptive mom and working mom. She lives with and writes about her blended family of seven kids, four pets and one amazingly patient husband at www.herdingsquirrels.com. Find her on Facebook at Facebook.com/herdingsquirrels; contact her at tarbiosgmail.com; or zap her on twitter, herdnsquirrels. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.