Saturday afternoon Sasha lost his tooth. It was the second tooth he's lost in three days. It came out fine and naturally, surprising him as much as us. He didn't get to play with it loose or anything.
So Saturday night he went to bed. As a special treat for the good day he had, and since it was the weekend, he got to sleep with Poppa in the big bed. He went to bed first, and I joined him later. (At a more adult and respectable 11pm).
He woke me with the dreadful news at 7am Sunday morning.
I had forgotten. Momma had forgotten. But to Sasha's tear filled eyes, someone else had forgotten.
**************SPOILER**************************
The Tooth Fairy had forgotten to give him money in exchange for his lost tooth.
For those of you who don't know, its the parents responsibility to take care of this task, and I didn't.
After watching Dr. Who (TIVO'd from the night before) and some other good shows, I crawled into bed Saturday and was asleep without even thinking about my dental/parental responsibilities.
But it gets worse.
Sunday was a busy day for us, getting the house ready for an "Open House" as we try to sell it. Sasha worked hard, and then he wrote the Tooth Fairy a note asking her to not forget him again. This he put in the zip-loc bag with his tooth, and stuck under his pillow for that night.
Last night the wife and I climbed into bed, getting ready for a busy week of work. "The Tooth?" she asked. "I've got a dollar downstairs in my pants." I don't wear my wallet in my jammies. "OK" she said, "We'll make the trade tomorrow morning before he wakes up."
The alarm was set for 5:30am.
Alas.
At 4:30am Sasha had a bug bite, and decided the best way to fall back to sleep was to climb in bed with Momma and Pappa. At 4:30am I was just glad I didn't have to get out of bed.
"You know," he said before falling back to sleep, "The tooth fairy hasn't been to my pillow yet."
I think that woke Momma up right then. Instead of one last hour of sleep she spent the time plotting and planning on how to beat Sasha downstairs and make the swap.
I snored away. I'm a bad Papa.
At 5:30 the alarm rang and Sasha jumped right up and we were set to have a big day. It was only when I was half way in the shower that I remembered the tooth fairy. Momma was busy trying to distract Sasha so she could make the trade. I called him into the bathroom to remove the cat (Our cat has a fixation with the shower. He loves to drink from the tap, and play in the running water of the shower, which makes getting clean an adventure every morning.)
This well thought out diversion of mine was exactly what Momma needed. Just as I was getting out of the shower Sasha came running in. "A DOLLAR!!!!! I GOT A WHOLE DOLLAR!!!!"
He was thrilled.
The Tooth Fairy was forgiven.
My parental neglect was a non-issue.
Proof again that Bribery works.
Then he said those few sweet words that all parents dread, "Can I go buy something now?"
I told him to wait until I put my pants on.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
You know, I used to tell my kid never to put his head under the pillow, because sometimes the Tooth Fairy takes an eye by mistake.
And that she uses all those teeth to make piano keys. The black keys were from kids who didn't brush their teeth.
Bad Papa? Hardly!
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
That's a great story, Dan! I was always late with Tooth Fairy visit with my son (my daughter is still a little young yet to start losing hers).
With one of his last baby teeth, I kept forgetting, for like an entire WEEK. When my son complained, I suggested that he write the Tooth Fairy a nice note and put a stamp on it and we would mail it to her. A few days later, when I finally got around to getting some Hot Wheels for under his pillow (he didn't care about money then and was far more excited to get a small toy), I left the little cars along with a letter from the Tooth Fairy apologizing for the delay with an explanation that she'd taken her first vacation in 200 years to the Bahamas and was just now catching up on the backlog.
He loved it.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I always had to let my parents know to leave the tooth, so I always made sure they wouldn't forget.
I can't really remember a time when I believed, but in my family everyone plays along.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
That was my experience, too. I played along for years for my mom's sake.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Maybe you should put "13 and up!" in the thread title, since some folks have young readers at home.
I never thought the tooth fairy was that important, and I was a bit of a "they'll think Abraham Lincoln is make believe too" grump. But my husband insisted, and because I can walk around in the dark, having both sharper eyes and less tender feet, I always got saddled with the job.
But it is fun to sneak around, like I'm a rotund, middle aged ninja.
Posted by TheBlueShadow (Member # 9718) on :
My parents were also part of the group that made awful tooth fairies.
First, we left our teeth in the living room under a glass. The tooth fairy could be quicker about it and not have to worry about waking anyone up.
Second, in my house having the tooth fairy only miss a day wouldn't have worried me at all. It always took a few days. Our tooth fairy had a scheduling problem.
Eventually my Mom gave up after they forgot about one of my teeth for 2 weeks.
"You know the tooth fairy's not real, right?" "Does this mean you're finally going to let me have my money? Because that's getting kind of gross."
After that I just got the money.
They did a good job with Santa though. Unfortunately for them, when you know one is fake it's hard to believe in the rest.
Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
My older brother had a fun story with the Tooth Fairy. Any time we lost a tooth we'd get 50 cents. Well, he decided that maybe if the tooth fairy did a bulk purchase, he'd get more money. So he started saving his teeth in a ziploc baggy. Once he had about seven, he put them all under the pillow. He got a 5 dollar bill and was very satisfied with himself.
The weird thing was the baggy? Keeping teeth in it n'stuff... vile... nasty looking by the seventh tooth.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
My folks always gave us rare coins or the $2 bills for our teeth. I still have all the loot from those days tucked away.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Dan, don't feel bad. We often forget to leave tooth money for the kids.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote:First, we left our teeth in the living room under a glass. The tooth fairy could be quicker about it and not have to worry about waking anyone up.
Oh wow, this is such a good idea. Maybe I can even get him to leave it in the living room. Well, that might be pushing our luck.
My kids don't know about going out and spending money. It's a bit of a concern.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
Ugh, I was the worst tooth fairy ever. My kids actually learned to play along (probably to make me feel better) and would come in and say, "um, Mom? Can you come help me look for the tooth fairy's money?" to give me a chance to do a sleight-of-hand under the pillow WHILE THEY WATCHED. I know they pitied me. "Oh, look, it was right here all along!" They were kind enough not to point out that the tooth was also there.
My youngest would carefully shape a pink and white marshmallow from Lucky Charms and try to convince us that it was another tooth lost. She probably figured we were such incompetents that we wouldn't notice.
Posted by Steve_G (Member # 10101) on :
I haven't missed yet, but there have been some close calls. I've learned its best to do TF Ninja thing at night before going to bed. TF Ninjas have a harder time in daylight.
My daughter lost her tooth once and was distraught, so she wrote a note explaining the situation and to leave money anyway. To her delight she still got paid for the tooth.
Another time she decided she wanted to keep the tooth. So she wrote a long not explaining how she wanted the tooth, but would still like some money as well. The nice tooth fairy apparantly is a real softy, because she got paid and got to keep the tooth.
[ August 07, 2007, 01:21 PM: Message edited by: Steve_G ]
Posted by Steve_G (Member # 10101) on :
speaking of tooth Fairys and Santa claus. There really ought to be a warning label on some kids books. When my daughter was 4 or 5 I was reading SuperFudge by Beverly Cleary to her. I had remembered reading this book and we had read some of the other Fudge books before then, but I was shocked to discover the hint dropping about Mr Claus's real identity. I had to creatively skim ahead as I read, alter the story and outright skip pages while she wasn't looking.
I was very distressed a couple years later when my daughter brought home a Junie B Jones tooth Fairy book from school. Yikes. I didn't have time to preread the book, so I treaded carefully, but luckily the author made it all work out, but I sweated though it.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Yeah, we missed the big one. Our first chance to be Tooth Fairy for our oldest daughter and we blew it. She came in our room early the next morning quite sad and told the that the Tooth Fairy had forgotten. So I soothed her feelings a little while my wife slipped into her room and made the exchange. Then we had her come back to her room and make the discovery. Somehow we smoothed it over and she was happy.
Her second tooth, she wrote a sweet little note to the Tooth Fairy saying she lost her tooth but couldn't find it, and would the Tooth Fairy leave some money anyway? She signed it with her name and age. Of course we kept that note, and managed to slip the money under her pillow before she even went to bed.
I honestly don't mind if my kids believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus or not. I figure at some point the truth will dawn on them, they'll deal with it, and move on.
Posted by Mrs.M (Member # 2943) on :
Don't worry everyone, we're not doing the tooth fairy at all. My family never did it, either, and I didn't miss it. I never really understood the tradition and since I've had some degree of OCD since I was little, the idea of putting a bloody tooth under my clean pillow freaked me out.
Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :
We are pretty bad tooth fairies. At this point the kids hand us the teeth up front and just ask for the cash.They will usually remind us that kids in Mercer Island get around $20 a tooth, which we will laugh at and give them $1.
Posted by TheBlueShadow (Member # 9718) on :
quote:Originally posted by pooka:
quote:First, we left our teeth in the living room under a glass. The tooth fairy could be quicker about it and not have to worry about waking anyone up.
Oh wow, this is such a good idea. Maybe I can even get him to leave it in the living room. Well, that might be pushing our luck.
My kids don't know about going out and spending money. It's a bit of a concern.
It worked and we believed it, or went along with it enough. It was all to help the tooth fairy out. There's a lot of kids losing teeth, you know?