I’ve had a total of four teeth lost by children in this house the past week. It seems like a good time to pull out my tooth fairy post that I shared on Facebook a while back, but I still want to get it on my blog site. Enjoy.
Our family doesn’t do Santa Claus. We don’t do the Easter Bunny either. But, for some inexplicable reason, we have kept hold of the Tooth Fairy. I would like to go on record right now and say that being the tooth fairy has to have been one of the most difficult parts of parenting. I am the loser parent who is always forgetting that her child eagerly put his tooth under his pillow, and then in the morning they come down crying, disappointed because the tooth fairy never came. I can tell you that there is no feeling lower than seeing your child cry because you forgot to sneak into their room in the middle of the night, swipe a tooth, and replace it with a dollar. (I will blame this on sleep-deprivation, short-term memory loss, and the fact that I’m usually asleep before all my kids have finally settled down) And so, I have gotten very creative with my excuses. “Oh honey, sometimes the tooth fairy comes later in the morning! Just go put that tooth back under your pillow and check again this afternoon. I’m sure she’ll show up soon!” And this is from ME. The mom who believes in total honesty with her children, who never sugar-coats anything with euphemisms, who has up-front explained where babies come from when her 6 year old inquired about her pregnancy.
When it comes to the tooth fairy, I am suddenly a pathological liar. I have even written letters of apology to one of my kids, “from the tooth fairy”, because she was late…again.
Of course, my older kids have done everything in their power to catch the tooth fairy. Levi once strung his entire room with yarn, creating a web around his bed with lots of various objects balancing on the web so that when the yarn was moved, everything would fall off. I left that challenge up to Andy. Then there was the time Anna tied a bundle of books over her pillow with the string attached in such a way that if someone touched her pillow, the books would fall on her head and wake her up. I thought I could outsmart that one but, alas, the books fell right on her head as I was leaning over her. I panicked, dropped to the floor and rolled under her bed. Frozen, my heart thumping, just waiting to be discovered. And the silly kid didn’t even wake up. As I lay under the bed, it occurred to me that perhaps, this tooth fairy business was getting a bit out of hand.
I have gotten lazier as the years have passed. Sometimes I’ll get Anna to be the tooth fairy for me. She rolls her eyes but does the deed. Today though, I had a real moment of inspiration. My 11 year old told me he had just lost a tooth. He expressed his doubt in the existence of the tooth fairy and I told him that since he is now heading into the teen years, the tooth fairy handles things differently. Since he doesn’t believe in the tooth fairy, the tooth fairy won’t come. BUT, since I still believe in the tooth fairy, he can go and put his tooth on MY dresser, and in the morning it will be replaced with a dollar. I am a genius.
Life With Esther 