The Tooth Fairy Returns

Got home last night after church (and a very long day) and was desperately trying to get Tiny Terror in the bed.

Me: "Go to bed. Just go to bed. Now. No. Bed. No. You can take a bath another time. Now. Bed. JONATHAN!? Get your stuff together and take your bath!"

This was met with a deep disappointed sigh from down the hall in the direction of Boy's room.

Boy: "But Dad, doesn't she need to bathe? She got all sweaty and stuff at the McWane Center today, and she needs to bathe."

Said because he thinks the order of baths at night is very important, and hates having to go before his little sister. Bath order/birth order sort of deal.

Me: "Go bathe."

Such dejection. But away he went.

Back to the task at hand--figuring out a way to incapacitate a seven year old. "Catherine? SLEEP!"

She had gotten her shorts off and was squirming around on her bed.

"Can you pull my tooth?"

::sigh:: She's been working on her lower left lateral incisor for a couple of weeks now, and it has always been tighter than wax everytime I have wiggled it. I gave it yet another wiggle, not expecting any progress, and the icky thing tilted outwards at an alarming angle of attack to the rest of her little razor sharp fangs. Hmm. Time to pull teeth.

I tugged at it a bit more, but it was still attached somewhere, so I went and got a damp washcloth and started pulling it up to an accompaniment of "OWOWOWOWOWOW." Ploop. Came right out. Nice and shiny, no spots or chips. I then noticed Cat had a mouthful of blood, so I gave her the washcloth to jam in there. I suppose that's one way to keep her quiet. "AH WAHN GO SHAH IH OO AMA!" Off she pounded through the house to our bathroom to show her recently detached body part to Mom, who was, as always, grossed out.

As she did that, I searched for the Tooth Pillow. It's a little fluffy thing with a pouch where you put the tooth, and a loop of ribbon to hang it over a doorknob so that the Tooth Fairy can get at it easier. Always manages to get itself lost. I asked all the kids and no one knew where it was, so I rounded Catherine back up and plopped her into bed again with a sad tale of not being able to find the tooth pillow. "Tell you what--I'll wrap it up and put it right her on your soccer trophy so she can find it easy."

Entirely agreeable, thankfully.

"Daddy, I hope she can get it because she is liiiiiiiittle tiny!"

Hmm. This was news to me--as you know, our family has already had a long and verbose pre-blog relationship with the Tooth Fairy, and I was always much under the impression that she was one of the larger sorts of fairies, stoutly built, something like a softball player. (Based entirely upon my own rather odd ideas of what I would like for the Tooth Fairy to be. After all, it is all about me.)

"Really?! I thought she was a big fairy, but you say she't teeninesy--like Tinkerbell?"

Big smile--"Uh-huh! And she FLIIIIES up to the window, and POOF she does magic and she gets the tooth out of your room and then leaves money and then POOF she goes home!"

"Well, you know, I never knew that! Have you ever SEEN the Tooth Fairy?!"

"Ummm, I think so, but probably not or she would have gotted scared and flewed away."

I kissed her on the noggin and tucked her in--"Make me be like a burrito!"--and went on to make sure the rest of the kids got bathed and bedded down.

Got up this morning and started my rounds of wake-up, and walked into Cat and Rebecca's room, flipped on the light and was just about to say, "WAKE..." Oops. Something wrapped up in toilet paper on someone's soccer trophy caught my eye--it seems whatever size she is, she let this one slip by. Can't have that, so I quietly flipped the light back off and ran and got a buck out of my wallet and then came back and made the swap, THEN started rousting them up. I got Cat to go take her bath (which took forever because she wanted to play) and after no small amount of time, she came padding into our bedroom in her underdrawers, proudly holding aloft the dollar.

"Where'd you get that, Squirt?"

"THA TOOTH FAIRY BROUGHT IT!"

"Really, now! My goodness!"

I flopped her up onto our bed and got her clothes for today, and we discussed the recent visitation.

"Catherine, exactly what does the Tooth Fairy do with all those teeth she gets?"

"She puts them in BIG piles all around her house."

"Why?"

"I don't know, she just does."

"Does she do anything with them? Play with them? Anything like that?"

A look of disgust briefly crossed Cat's face--"NO, Dad, she doesn't PLAY with them! Sometimes she jus sits on them."

Ah. We chatted some more about the Tooth Fairy's personal attributes and skill at sneaking into children's rooms, and then we went on to the most important topic. "And where does she get the money to give to people for their teeth?"

Hmm. A puzzlement for sure. Catherine thought for a minute, and then said, "She gets it out of my big crayon bank."

Such a shocking revelation--"So you mean to tell me the Tooth Fairy is a Democrat!?"

I assured Catherine that the Tooth Fairy doesn't take her money out of her bank, and tried to convince her again that the Tooth Fairy is really a muscular blonde girl, as Reba walked out of the bathroom with the very tiniest of smiles on her face. "I've been listening to all of this...you tell Daddy he's just being silly."

"You're SILLY, Dad!"

Well, yes.
posted by Terry at 10:49:00 AM