So I paced and put it off and finally did it! I mean, let's be real, it's pretty easy to get away with Santa and the Easter Bunny - but this is serious business - sneaking in and taking stuff from under the pillow when your kids aren't heavy sleepers?!! My nerves were shot!
Oh, and earlier in the evening when Marlie very blankly looked at me and said "Is the tooth fairy real?!", I shot down any doubt with hard core facts and evidence. If you know me, you know that I am the opposite of a sentimental packrat - HOWEVER, I have one Rubbermaid container in my basement that encapsulates the first 18 years of my life - from baby pics to high school diploma - and oh yes, my first lost tooth and the letter I got from the tooth fairy safely stored in a grape Bubble Tape container! Oh yea!
I went down and dug it out and gave a high five to the 6 year old me who saved that - and I showed it to Marlie. I restored the faith - and also conned myself out of another dollar since the tooth fairy in 1987 left me $1 for the tooth and a bonus $1 for it being my first. I looked at that note 25 years later and looked across the table at my Mom and was still impressed at how she hid her handwriting! Knowing I couldn't do that as well, off to google I went!
Let me say - not only are there thousands of free printables, there are sites that make money off this stuff - who freaking knew?!! But I guess if you can charge for a letter from Santa, why not?!
So I picked a simple, editable, free letter and did my thing. Now - it was my bright idea to put the damn tooth in a Ziploc bag and it was Marlie's idea to write a preemptive thank you note to put in the bag. So I maneuvered the bag open and slipped the one note out and my note and cash in and got the hell out!
This morning when I thought success was mine, down comes Marlie saying that the tooth fairy took the tooth! I read the letter and explained that it said she left it, so Marlie must have dropped it. We went back upstairs and it was by her bed - most likely it was me, but she assumed it was her!
And because this saga couldn't be over yet (OMG!!!) we had to then discuss the likelihood that there is more than one tooth fairy accounting for the different notes and denominations of tooth rewards. And more questions led to some googling to find the legend of the tooth fairy . . . Bottom line, her fairy talent was to make girls and boys happy and to feel safe with them losing their teeth and to take the teeth to her sister fairy to turn into stars so the children would always be part of the world and sky and a reminder of the love that the 3rd fairy sister worked to spark and create - it was cute :)
At the end, we have kept a little magic alive for our oh so logical daughter - and even if for just a little bit, forced her to remain a kid and imagine - and I don't think that's a bad thing . . . But I am so not pulling tooth fairy duty again, that shit is stressful!
1 comment:
Okay we never talked about how this ended so I had to read this post!
I love the letter idea! When I was a kid I ate one of my teeth. In some pudding. I didn't know I lost a tooth, anyway, my grandmother helped me write a note to the tooth fairy. So funny. I think I also got $1 for each tooth. I'm totally sticking to that. It's just a tooth, not a golden nugget!
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