Tooth Fairy - Stick To Cold Hard Cash

Well, the necklace from the tooth fairy was a big hit. Too good to be true as it turns out. This is what happens when you think outside the box and try to outsmart the tooth fairy bringing money.....

Anna: taking the necklace out of her tooth fairy bag "Is this what I think it is?"
Me: "Erm, a necklace?"
Anna: "No, Momma, the tooth fairy has brought me my dearest wish!"
Me: Huh?
Anna: in a reverential whisper "It's an amulet!"
Me: "Erm...."
Anna: eyes rolling "Momma, an amulet is a necklace that has special powers. My dearest wish is to be able to fly. The tooth fairy knows this!"
Me: "Oh, well,....."
Anna: "Not like jet-pack flying. Real flying!!!"
Me: "Oh God"

She then rushed downstairs and demanded I came too - for a demonstration. She said, and I quote, "watch out Mom, I'm gonna put this on and I'm probably just gonna bust right through that ceiling! This is going to be awesome. I'm gonna go to school, but then I'm just gonna fly right off and visit Lucy at preschool, or maybe I'll just hang around school, you know, showing off and doing flips and stuff."

And then, my crazy, sweet, hopeful, beautiful dreamer of a girl put the necklace around her neck, closed her eyes and flapped like crazy.

She failed to 'bust through the ceiling.'

My heart was breaking for her. She was crushed. So I said "maybe it has different kinds of powers?"

Perhaps this wasn't my smartest move.

"Or perhaps it only works when I'm alone, or perhaps it needs to get used to me?" she offered. At this point I probably should have said 'or perhaps it's just a necklace?' Instead we get to her 2nd grade classroom about an hour later and she rushes over to her teacher, shows her the necklace and says "Look what the tooth fairy got me! My Mom says it probably has powers, like being able to talk to animals or something!" Her teacher gave me a look and one of those mouth-only, no-eye smiles that said 'well, that explains a lot.'

It's going to be an interesting parent-teacher conference.

Oh, Tooth Fairy

This is a rich town, and when Anna looked under her pillow two days ago and found $2.50 in quarters from the tooth fairy she was quite obviously disappointed. She even looked under the pillow in our bed - just in case the tooth fairy thought she'd spent half the night there, as happens more often than not.

Apparently her friends have been receiving all sorts of things under their pillows. Gift certificates. Toys. Paper money. A guinea pig. Ok, that last one was a joke.

The thing is, she has a lot of baby teeth, and I'm not about to jump on the Santa Barbara bandwagon and start handing out stock portfolios with a little pixie dust every time she loses a tooth. Plus, even though I'd been given fair warning about a wobbly tooth, it fell out at 9:30pm leaving Mr and Mrs Tooth Fairy in a bit of a last minute scramble.

What does the tooth fairy bring in your household? I think I remember getting 10p, which I may ask my brother to corroborate. I know if I ask my Mum she'll roll her eyes via Skype and say 'I haven't a clue'.

Eventually, things cheered up around here. Not least because when she got in the car to school with her friend Sophie and said she'd lost a tooth and got ten quarters, Sophie replied "cool", which was exactly what Anna - spoiled brat - needed to hear. Later on that day she also said "you know how you know it's the tooth fairy? Because where else do you get these bags? You never see them!" Well, the answer is, I got this shimmery, gauzy, fairy-like drawstring bag at the Nordstrom make-up counter and I begged it off a Nordstrom-ite for free. You go tooth fairy! I also polish up the quarters I give her using good old HP Sauce, so that each coin has an extra gleam of other-worldness.

Mollified by Sophie, and putting on the back-burner the knowledge that friend R. received $10 and three model aeroplane kits for his latest tooth (how big is this boy's pillow??!!!), she carried on her day and started practicing her lisp.

Two days later she lost another tooth. This one didn't so much fall out, it was more like assisted dental suicide, having learned from her father that when a tooth is very wobbly it can be helped along with some fingers and a plier-like action. Urgh.

Anna holding her tooth-keeper necklace. That is not a life-size tooth that has fallen out of her mouth - despite the fact she is American and Americans do have giant teeth.

This happened at school and she came home with a brilliant tooth-keeper necklace that she was understandably very proud of:

Now who's glad she didn't spend $$$ on a tooth. These things are dropping like flies. Anna has now announced that she 'looks like a beaver' having lost both teeth surrounding her lower two teeth, and when I asked what she was going to do when she lost her wobbly top tooth (the thing is days away....) she said 'then I shall just have to call myself a jack-o-lantern'.

Smart stuff. Actually, as I write this, she is fast asleep with the tooth fairy bag under her pillow filled with a flower-shaped necklace from Claire's. Because the tooth fairy is a victim of societal pressure and Mr. Tooth Fairy had time to pop to the shops.

Now Lucy, aged three, is convinced she has a wobbly tooth. Of course she does, that one never misses a trick.

Sister Comfort

Lots going on, many, many half written posts, but this I have time for:

At breakfast this morning Lucy was mournfully describing her nightmare, and the reason she crept floss-haired and teary in to our bed at 6am.

Lucy: "It was a lizard and he bited my arm and I hadded to move my arm away from him but he bited me again."
Anna: breakfast spoon poised thoughtfully in front of her mouth "Lucy, what kind of lizard was it?"
Lucy: "The lizard was big and the lizard was green"
Anna: with a knowing nod "that was a monitor lizard Lucy. I can see how that was very scary".
Lucy: "It was"