Tooth Fairy Slip-up

One bright and early morning, before I'd even had the chance to get out of bed, my six-year-old held before me the plastic sandwich bag she had placed her tooth in the previous day. Her disappointed face spoke volumes.

"Um, sometimes the Tooth Fairy forgets?" I quickly replied.

Brianne nodded her head in understanding, "Yeah or maybe she was busy getting another tooth,"

Whew!

"Exactly, don't worry, just put it back under your pillow, okay? I'm sure the Tooth Fairy will get it tonight."

While, Brianne re-deposited the sandwich bag under her pillow the Tooth Fairy admonished herself for having stayed up late. So late that, barely able to keep her eyes open, she had staggered to bed and was out before her head even hit the pillow.

Tooth, what tooth?

Granted it wasn't the first or even the second lost tooth for Brianne, though its departure from her mouth was met with just as much hysteria as if it were her first. The subsequent screaming over the tooth held in her palm turned yet another lock of my hair gray and forged another wrinkle across my brow. How in the world could I, er, the Tooth Fairy have forgotten after that display? Certainly, when I was a kid, the Tooth Fairy never forgot me so Ms. T.F. felt mighty bad. And just about the time she figured things were cool, that she could make up for her mistake, Brianne comes out from the shadows.

"Mommy, why did the Tooth Fairy forget me?"

I stumbled for the right words as Brianne proceeded to list off the toys she would buy with the money that would be left under her pillow, "Will she leave enough so I can buy something for Emma, too?"

"Uh..." This was very unlike Brianne to be so charitable towards her little sister and that's when it hit me. My eldest daughter was going to milk this Tooth Fairy slip-up for all its worth. If I or rather; the Tooth Fairy messed up a second time, or heaven forbid a third time, she'd go bankrupt.

Originally published in the Daily Advocate, April 2008.

Bethany J. Royer-DeLong is currently entrenched at home fighting the good war against the gimmes and the I-don't-wannas. She blogs recklessly, as all mothers of children under the age of six should, and has been working on that "supposed" great American novel, times a dozen. You can visit her at motherofthemunchkins.blogspot.com and email her at broyerdelong@yahoo.com