Thursday, August 20, 2009

Not having the Moral Fiber: Or, How to Cope with Your Chidlren Expecting the Tooth Fairy

Matt is distracting me by looking at the Fail Blog and laughing too loudly for me to think. The children are quietly fighting over Lincoln Logs in the background and coming in every few minutes to tattle.

Romulus: Alouicious Coffeeeeeeed me!!!!! (And no, Romulous can't say the word Alouicious, just like I can't spell it. AND if you come over and tell them that its 'copy' not 'coffee' I'll be so unhappy with you.)
Me: I'm sorry to hear that. Are you ok?
Romulus: Yeah. But I'm gonna be a knight.
Me: Ok.

Two minutes later
Gladys: ROMULUS AGH lalalla (the intonation of a tattle is perfect)
Me: I'm sorry to hear that. Are you ok?
Gladys: Yeah.

Two minutes later
Alouicious: Romulus is hitting Gladys on the head.
Me: I'm sorry to hear that. What did she do to deserve it?
Alouicious: She bit him.
That's right, we have a biter.
And, we have another lost tooth. That makes three. Three perfect funny little holes in the bottom of Elphine's mouth, three dollars scrounged around for at 4 in the morning because I forgot the night before, three times of Matt and I creeping into her room trying to find the blinking tooth. This time she woke up and sat straight up in her bed.
'What are you doing?'
'Checking on Gladys, go back to sleep.'
'Why are you touching my pillow?'
'I didn't touch your pillow. Go back to sleep.'
We stumble out, Matt and I, cursing each other under our breaths.
'Why did you lie!!!!' He hissed.
'I thought lying was our standard operating procedure concerning the Tooth Fairy. The Whole Thing is a Wretched Lie! Why didn't you do it? You know I can't think on my feet. Its 4AM!!! (Did I mention that I was woken by Matt out of a dream that turned out to be......That's right, the Gummy Bear Song. Please don't google it. Its lude and catchy--a horrible green gummy bear in yellow underwear dancing an inappropriate dance and singing 'Oh I'm a gummy bear, yes I'm a gummy bear, I'm a gummy yummy gummy yummy bear'. THAT is what lies in my deep unconscious. How thoroughly disappointing.)
'I'm just saying,' said Matt, 'You could have said, I was checking to see if the Tooth Fairy had come.'
'Well, that would have made sense wouldn't it have.' I stumbled back to bed and woke two hours later to the gentle sound of Susan Russel and Kendall Harmon battling it out on Minnesota Public Radio or something. As far as I can tell, the tooth is still in there, but my child only noticed the money. So now I only have to creep in when she isn't looking and remove it. That should be easy. I'm sure I won't foul that up.

8 comments:

mcyoder said...

They make fancy little boxes for the tooth, but I always had my son put the tooth in an envelope when he put it under the pillow. I put the money in another envelope and then switched them. Of course now that he's ten, he hands me the tooth, and I give him the money.

Sarah Boyle Webber said...

Thanks for the laugh!

I remember that awful blood test when I was pregnant with Miranda. The stuff tasted so awful that it took me almost an hour to drink it because when I asked what would happen if I threw it up, they told me I'd just have to drink it again. So I did drink it, just real slowly.

Anonymous said...

Similar to mcyoder's envelope idea, when my kids lose their teeth, I have a little pouch for the "Tooth Fairy" to retrieve the tiny objects (and they are so darn small, aren't they?!?!), and in which she could leave a dollar coin. Since I love to sew and it was a quick project, it seemed the best idea and makes the event a little more special for the kids. There are patterns all over the internet, even some very simple felt ones that your older children could probably make with you as an art project. I didn't use a pattern, and just made it up as I went along, but ideas abound if you do a Google search on the subject.

Noni

R said...

We used an old jewelry pouch. ;) I lost my front tooth for Christmas, and the tooth fairy looks _exactly_ like my grandmother. :D

Miss you all!

~R

Rev Dr Mom said...

You think it's hard to remember now! By the time my fourth child was losing his baby teeth, I was so OVER the Tooth Fairy that it often took several nights for the TF to come.

Anonymous said...

My aunt would "palm" in her left hand the Fairy money. She would then go into the bedroom of the sleeping child, lean over and kiss the child awake while sliding the money hand under the pillow. And none of her children,grandchildren nieces, nephews or their children ever caught her in the act so perhaps she really was the Tooth Fairy! Enjoy your shouting children it will take your breath away how quickly this time goes.

Donna said...

My favorite "tooth fairy" story comes from Helen Doss, the Methodist minister's wife in "The Family Nobody Wanted". On no money during and after the Depression, their family legend has Santa Claus coming to get the teeth, and leaving an extra present at Christmas. All goes well until one of her logical children asks "Why does Santa need all those teeth?". Her more imaginative child saves the day my exclaiming, "That is where doll's teeth come from !"

Anonymous said...

On that Gummy Bear Song dream: don't worry about what you think the implications of the song are. It could be that such a dream is more like a nut, e.g. a walnut with nutritious food value, which you receive in its quite inedible and now-useless but attention-grabbing hull. I have had dreams which eventually I realized contained one thing only that I needed to pay attention to, and the rest was just to get my attention. So perhaps it's the dancing, or the act of singing itself, that is important about that dream, and none of the rest really means anything now that the Holy Spirit has got you thinking.