One day a few months before my stepson’s sixth birthday, we were driving in the car while he sat in the back seat wiggling his loose tooth. His FIRST loose tooth. He was pretty persistent with the wiggling, and eventually that little tooth came out.

We had him write a letter to the tooth fairy, put the tooth under his pillow, and in the morning he awoke to find $5 under his pillow (what did we know?!) and a cool new toy. My husband still has the tooth and the letter to the tooth fairy in an envelope in our office. When my stepson’s mother found out that his first tooth had come out, she was upset – and not only was she upset, but insisted that we give her the tooth back.

As a noncustodial parent, so many of these milestones happen when my husband’s kid was not with us. Sure, we sort of lucked out with the first tooth – but so many other events are missed. A child only does something for the first time, ONE time.

While my husband definitely makes the most of the time he has, sometimes it’s frustrating to know that he’s missing so much of his child’s day to day life.

How do you deal with missing your child/stepchild’s milestones?

Photo credit: ODHD