An Unhelpful Fairy

The tooth fairy messed up big time. Big time.

I always loved the tooth fairy. I would lay in my bed at night, pushing my tongue against the new hole in my mouth and dream of a beautiful little woman (thanks to Disney the tooth fairy's gender is up for debate, but for the purposes of this blog and to preserve my childhood memories, the tooth fairy shall remain a female) no bigger than my hand flitting through my window to collect her treasure and leave me with some much deserved cash. Much deserved because my tooth was usually yanked from my mouth prematurely by my Dad who would promise to just "wiggle it" to see if it was ready. I didn't pick up on his trick until I'd lost all my baby teeth. I know. Slow.

Anyway ... I always loved the tooth fairy. Until this morning.

And now I hate the tooth fairy. I hate the tooth fairy because she is NOT REAL. She doesn't sneak in quietly and undetected in the middle of the night to exchange money for a cute little lost tooth.

She can't because she's not real.

The tooth fairy doesn't exist. And, because the tooth fairy doesn't exist, the job of the "tooth fairy" is conducted - largely - by parents. Mom's and Dad's who are not cute little mythical creatures. Mom's and Dad's who are fallible. And we forget things.

WE forgot that at 9:30 am on Sunday morning our seven year old suddenly remembered that he needed to put his tooth - which fell out at school earlier in the week - under his pillow so the tooth fairy would come and give him money.

So ... this morning at 7:30 am when he woke up and called me into his room as I was heading for the shower I was faced with a little boy saying "Mommy, I didn't get anything ..."

I didn't understand at first - "didn't get what baby?"

"I didn't get anything" (gestures wildly towards his pillow and looks up at me with big brown very sad eyes).

And my stomach fell.

I was a terrible Mommy for forgetting.

And I realized in that moment that I hated the stupid tooth fairy for not being real and for not throwing me a bone and showing up to give my kid a little money under his pillow.

But I couldn't say that to him so I told him that the tooth fairy probably just forgot because he had placed it under his pillow so early in the day. I reminded him that most kids put the tooth under their pillow right before bed so the tooth fairy probably just forgot about it ... but that surely the tooth fairy would come tonight. I guaranteed it.

Jackie Chan was doubtful and I could see in his eyes that he was doubtful because he had to know somewhere deep inside that surely a fairy with magical powers and all would never, ever forget. And I felt like crap. My made up story was lame.

But what could I do?

Crush him even more and tell him that indeed the tooth fairy is a big stupid made up thing and it wasn't the mythical little creature that had let him down, rather it was his forgetful and obviously uncaring parents who did that to him?

I think not.

I went downstairs to tell Curtis how horrible we were and we just stared at each other for a while -which wasn't a helpful exercise - so I went to shower.

Before Curtis left I asked him if he was going to talk to Jackie Chan. And my wonderful, brilliant husband, who is also an amazing, thoughtful, caring father said "yes, I'm going to tell him that I looked up the tooth fairy's hours on the Internet and that she takes Sunday's off."

CLASSIC.

And it worked.

(And I totally know that there are many of you who are probably thinking the biggest part of this story is why our seven year old still believes in the tooth fairy ... I will tell you that my seven year old also walks by crack dealers on the way to school ... I don't mind a bit of childish fun in his life ...)