Its a well-known fact about our household that we perpetuate only ONE myth to Miss L. That would be basically because I slipped up and accidentally said yes to it, then didn’t realize it for like a day. So, the myth that we perpetuate is… The Tooth Fairy.
Well, this last time L lost a tooth, I was really glad to have The Tooth Fairy to blame something on, because I screwed the pooch. Twice.
Here we go…
She was sitting at the table, eating baked beans, when the tooth that had been forever loose finally came out. She looked up at me with apprehension, picking it up off her spoon. Aww, heck, I had about ten seconds to redirect her before the Drama Llama was going to appear in all it’s magnificent glory.
“It doesn’t hurt!” I firmly said. “It just feels funny because that tooth is no longer there. Your gum is Sensitive, that’s all.” Tears started to well in her eyes. “Nope. Nu-uh. No drama-queening this. You’re good. You’re fine. No blood! Did you see any blood? I didn’t see any blood!” The excess water in her eyes disappeared when she realized I was right, and instead she gave me a gap-toothed look of amazement.
Phewww…crisis averted. Unfortunately, for this tale, that’s pretty much the last thing I did correctly.
Fast forward a couple hours, and she requests her tooth from my safe-keeping, saying she was going to put it in a container to make sure she didn’t lose it and put it where the tooth fairy would find it. After giving her a gentle admonishment to be careful what she did with it, I pushed it to the back of my mind. Soon enough it was bedtime, and as it an ‘other’ day, she was tucked into the Master Bedroom for sleep. (Every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday she gets to sleep with us.) I gave my usual hugs, kisses, 20 minutes of story time, and turned on her Johnny Cash CD, then slipped downstairs to finish a book I was reading for review.
I forgot about the tooth.
The next morning, I hear little feet pound excitedly from the master bedroom into her bedroom, and suddenly I remembered the tooth. I gulped. Within seconds, those feet are herd of elephants coming down the stairs, and I hear Miss L just cursing the Tooth Fairy up one side and down the other.
“I – put – it – under – my – pillow – and – SHE – DIDN’T – TAKE – IT! SHE DIDN’T TAKE THE TOOTH!” She’s grumbling and growling variations of this as she comes into the front room, where I’m trying not to cower on the couch.
“Uhm… Maybe she didn’t see it?” I offer up weakly, as I’m mentally repeating the word CRAP! over and over again. How was I going to dig us out of this one?
L practically hisses “IT WAS IN THE CONTAINER!” at me.
“What container, honey?” I’m blatantly stalling for time as I attempt to come up with an explanation. Luckily, at her age, she doesn’t cotton on to stalling tactics quickly.
“THE – GREEN – ONE!” Oooh, she’s fired up. I – I mean the Tooth Fairy – am in for it.
“Uhm, why don’t you go get the container and bring it down here to show me?” I ask slowly.
She scowls at me, but agrees, and stomps off up the stairs to retrieve the tupperware container. After a minute, she brings it to me, and thankyousweetbabyjesus I have an idea! I can see a way out of the hole that I’ve dug.
“Ohhhhhhh…well, its because you put it in tupperware! you KNOW the Tooth Fairy is little bitty, so she can fit under your pillow. You can’t expect her to open tupperware! I bet that’s what happened! She couldn’t get it open!” I’m all proud of myself for coming up with this one, and luckily L falls for it hook, line, and stinker. “So, go get me the note you wrote her last night, and the tape. I’ll tape the tooth to the note, so she’ll just be able to take that tooth easy as can be tonight.”
L agrees, and soon the deed is done, and the tooth is stowed under her pillow.
All is good, right?
Wrong. Everything would have been good. If I hadn’t forgotten about the tooth for the SECOND night in a row. This time, it doesn’t occur to me until after she’d already came downstairs. She hadn’t huffed and puffed about it this time, so…
Anyways, as soon as I realize, I ask to speak to her daddy in the other room, beg a fiver, and run upstairs to hide it under her pillow. When I come back downstairs, smooth as could be, I ask L if she’d checked under her pillow to see if the tooth fairy had come. Pleasesaynopleasesaynopleasesayno.
“Yeah, I did, and you know? The – tooth – fairy – didn’t – come – AGAIN! AGAIN! She -FORGOT – my – TOOTH- again. I DON’T KNOW WHATS WRONG WITH HER!!” Well, we went back and forth, but I eventually convinced her that she should go upstairs again and check – just in case.
She’s giving me the stink-eye, absolutely convinced she’s right, but she goes upstairs and checks. Seconds later, she’s comes galloping down the stairs, waving the five dollar bill over her head, and saying “I don’t get it! I checked! I checked THREE times. I checked under EVERY PILLOW this morning.”
Now, some parents might say what I did next was terrible and some might slow-clap in appreciation. Quite frankly, I’m surprised I had the figurative balls to do it at all.
Straight-faced, with a firm voice, I sighed and said “L, how many times have I told you that you need to pay attention when you look for things? You miss things that are right in front of you all the time, honey. You need to be more careful when you look!” (She really does.)
She sighed and solemnly replied “Yeah, mom, I know.”
Yeahhhhhh, I’m probably horrible, but I successfully saved the Tooth Fairy’s butt!
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