My Tooth Fairy’s Name Was Amanda

When my nephew lost his first tooth, my parents and I fell into that familiar nostalgia spiral, one story tumbling into the next, until my mom mentioned Amanda.

My very own, personal tooth fairy.

Apparently, while other kids were just fine with the vague quarter under their pillow, I needed the full biography of the fairy flying into my room at night.

At the ripe age of six, I started to grill my mother with critical questions.

Who is this fairy taking my teeth? 

Why do they even want them? 

How big are their wings? 

How do they get into the house, and how on earth do they do all of their work in a single night?

According to my mother, I was “a challenging kid,” which is her gentle way of saying I was relentlessly curious to the point of exhaustion.

So she did what any loving parent would do when logic fails... she built me an elaborate lie myth detailed enough to hold all my questions.

“There’s not just one tooth fairy,” she started. “Each child has their own.”

Mine, she decided, was named Amanda.

I was instantly obsessed and feverishly started writing letters to slip under my pillow at night alongside my tooth.

Amanda, are you tiny or tall? 

Do you live nearby? 

How old are you?

What do you do with my teeth? 

I learned that Amanda lived in a tree in our backyard… a house built entirely out of my teeth. (creepy, sure… but also incredibly cool. That detail came later.) 

Letter from Amanda (1997)

After multiple teeth, I started to notice that Amanda's handwriting looked eerily similar to my mother's. When I asked why, my mom gave a practiced smile, realizing her fiction may be fading.

Eventually, the story cracked. I brought my wonder to school, only to be met with the blank stares of kids who’d clearly been given the “generic tooth fairy package.”

For a while, I felt a bit embarrassed for believing in something so elaborate.

But now, decades later, I realized my mom wasn’t just humoring me; she was nurturing one of my most cherished traits - curiosity.

She taught me that intentional curiosity can open whole new worlds.

That was my first lesson in sonder.

Sonder is just "grown-up" curiosity. The kind that still wonders about the invisible, but turns that wonder toward "real" people (not just fairies).

It’s what happens when you look at a stranger and realize, deep down, that they, too, have a whole story you may never fully grasp.

That curiosity - the same one that once made me demand the backstory for my tooth fairy - is what led me to start Defining Sonder.

So after decades of grappling with the myth of Amanda... maybe she was quite real after all.

Maybe she never really flew into my room or lived in a house made of my teeth, but I think Amanda's spirit was real and was meant to follow me through my lifetime as a reminder that wonder and curiosity are both things I should never outgrow. 

With love, Dre (& Amanda)