Sometimes I’m stunned by the coincidence and timing of things. Verity wrote this post last year (oh yeah, hey, it’s Throwback Thursday), and now she’s dealing with yet another “child mouth issue” — this time it involves braces for her little one who’s sucked her thumb for years (maybe if we bug her enough, she’ll write about that, too). It just never, ever ends. Anyway, if you need a little more Verity, you can check out her other World’s Worst Moms posts or her blog, The State of Being Real.
My oldest daughter, who I call Queen Bee, finally lost her top front tooth. It’s been loose for weeks, enabling her to do all sorts of gross things with it. We’ve been calling her snaggle (short for snaggle tooth) for the way she could make it stick out between her lips with no other teeth showing. So this tooth has been the talk of the family for weeks.
Well it finally came out on Tuesday — so night of celebration and exciting tooth fairy planning? Uh, no. That is our night out and the sitter pretty much gets to our house when I get home. So we had about 10 minutes of high-fives, looking at the hole in her mouth, looking at the tooth, and then rush, rush, rush. Go over dinner with the sitter, get changed, look at homework, feed the dogs, and I’m out the door. Didn’t think another minute about the tooth. I put it on the top counter, very obvious to anyone over 4 1/2 feet tall. Oops.
When I got home, after the kids were asleep, the babysitter informed me that Queen Bee was very upset that she couldn’t find her tooth to leave for the tooth fairy. She had looked everywhere and couldn’t find it. So now the dilemma — do I put it under her pillow for her, or not? Would she want the dollar, or want the experience of putting it under herself? I chose to wait, figuring I could apologize in the morning and talk up how now Daddy could see it (he had been out of town until Wednesday night).
Well the morning was a disaster. On top of the fact that I have to get everyone up, ready and out the door by myself since my husband was out of town, I had clearly made the wrong choice when it came to the tooth. Queen Bee was so upset she wouldn’t speak to me (or do anything to get ready) for 30 minutes. Which of course led to frantic scrambling to get out the door, coupled with some yelling. Always good to yell at a kid that is already down, right?
Here is the topper — last night I found a note she had written to the tooth fairy. It had slid down the side of her bed. Here is what it said:
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| Photo by Verity |
“it is som were here
my mom poot my
tooth somewhere.
I can not find it.
I hope you can
find it.”
Tammy Soong is a writer, wife, and mom from Reno, Nevada. She takes an absurd amount of pain medication, but not enough to have actually named her children "Newt" and "Elfie." She spends most days stressing out over clutter, writing stuff for this place, and working on podcasts with her gal pals, the Blogging Betties.
My 8-yr old used to pull her teeth out for the money. In 2009 I broke my leg and told her that the Tooth Fairy doesn't come when moms have broken legs so she better stop pulling her teeth out. It worked! Unfortunately, ever since then, both of my girls have learned that their Tooth Fairy is a slacker and doesn't always come the same night. I personally talked to the Tooth Fairy and she told me that the later she is, the more she shells out. lol One time the Tooth Fairy even showed up at Grandma's House because I told the girls that unless they cleaned their bedrooms, the Tooth Fairy wouldn't be able to get to their beds. My 7-yr old pointed out that fairies fly. I chose to tell her she made a good point and then I changed the subject. 🙂
Along these same lines…a few years ago, the hubby and I stayed up too late drinking with our neighbors the night before Easter. My husband was supposed to get up really early and put out all the eggs and baskets for our then-7 year old son. Instead, we were woken up by our son crying beside our bed at 8am saying that the Easter Bunny didn't come. I told him "let's let Daddy sleep a little bit longer…I'll come upstairs and watch tv with you and then we'll go look for the eggs…maybe he put them outside where you couldn't find them". He said "no..I already looked"…oh crap. I went upstairs with my son and brought my cell phone…started texting my husband. I told him to hide the easter stuff REALLY well outside on the back of our property (we're on 2 acres), then to text me when he was done. When I heard back from him, we went to wake up Daddy and then Daddy and I pretended to search far and wide for the baskets and eggs…."finding" them on the back side of our property…the reasoning: the dogs must have scared away the Easter Bunny….whew…we barely got away with that one.
Our tooth fairy leaves lots of fairy dust (glitter) around the window and on the floor on the way to the tooth.
I bet the tooth fairy will do it up big for this tooth though.
My recent post Crops of Lov
OMG. That was some seriously fast thinking. I was freaking out just reading it!
Pulled out her teeth? That's dedicated.
See, now I'm afraid to do that kind of thing. Because if you go big in the beginning, you have to STAY big the whole time. I figure, lowered expectations (says the girl who goes completely looney at Christmas).
My kids had two different tooth fairies…Dentaiina and Flossy. Luckily they thought fast on their wings, and didn't become real slackers until right around when the jig needed to be up anyway! I love the glitter idea—maybe one of them could visit one last time (for the teeth that have accumulated in the cup on daughter's dresser…I think she's given up).
My recent post There's a little bit of Random Tuesday stuck to your sleeve
Rabbits freak me out so after their dad moved out last year, the girls weren't surprised when the Easter Bunny didn't show up. They decided that it knew I would be scared and didn't want to do that. Then they had the idea to call Grandma and see if the bunny stopped at her house (she lives just down the road from us). Thank goodness for cell phones. I warned my mom before the girls called her and she covered for me.
She's my little entrepreneur in training. lol
I'm lucky my girls have low expectations of me. That way I always seem way cooler than I really am!
My daughter understood how big the world is from an early age because we'd moved to Europe when she was a baby and her grandma and papa were a long plane ride away. So whenever the tooth fairy was a no-show, we discussed how many people in this big world must've lost teeth last night, and of course, the tooth fairy has to visit first -time losers first, and I'm sure she'll come tomorrow. She was very understanding of the delay.
Now, at 10, she knows it's me but won't confirm it until she's sure she has no more teeth to lose/money to make!