The Tooth Fairy Forgets

Yesterday, Samuel lost his 5th tooth. It was a crazy morning having let the kids sleep in closer to 8:00 a.m. That only made getting five people out the door by 8:25 all the more frenetic. I forgot to administer their last dose of antibiotics, pushed Emma out the door with no breakfast and got Samuel to school late because we had to make sure the bleeding stopped from having just pulled out his tooth. He was brushing his teeth with just minutes to spare before departure when a bottom tooth flipped out horizontally. With my own hands still coring and cutting an apple for his school snack all I could do was hand him a napkin and tell him to tug on it. Thankfully, he gave it a good enough tug to extract it himself. Only once have I had to pull a tooth out for him and it gave me the heeby-geebies. So I am very thankful he is more than capable in that matter. Samuel is always so proud when he loses a tooth! He came home very disappointed that no one was interested in seeing his missing tooth. I asked him what he said and his translation was sort of made up, so the kids probably weren't interested because they didn't understand what he was trying to say in Italian.

About 10 minutes after tucking the kids in to bed last night I heard Samuel calling me. We had forgotten to put his tooth under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy. I should have immediately written myself a note but, alas I did not. You can guess what happened when I turned in later at 11:30 p.m.

Samuel was the last one to wake up this morning and I could hear him talking to himself in his room before coming downstairs. He then came and sat at the top of the stairs in total tears saying "The Tooth Fairy didn't come!" My heart just sank! How could I forget such a thing?! I have not felt so bad since the day I was late to pick him up from school. He was so distraught and upset. I'm sure you can just picture his disappointment. After several minutes with still more tears coming down, I asked if Mamma could give him a quarter for now. He accepted my offer which took away a bit of the sting of being forgotten by the Tooth Fairy. I was scolding the Tooth Fairy and asking outloud "how could she forget?!!" Samuel thoughtfully responded "She must have been at another little boy's house." Why yes, of course! Maybe there were a lot of other kids who lost a tooth yesterday and she visited them first. She must have gotten too busy and ran out of time, but WILL FOR SURE VISIT TONIGHT!! Samuel is content to try again tonight.

I was struck to think how real the Tooth Fairy is to him. I don't remember when I figured out it was my mom who slipped in to my room during the night to leave a quarter or two for me to find in the morning along with disposing of my tooth. Maybe ones discovery of the real Tooth Fairy disqualifies you of future earnings? How long do I lead him to believe in the little-wanded fairy? What do I do with all his teeth? Just some questions to muse over and to help me keep my task for tonight on the front of my mind so I don't forget again.

[And just so you don't think I'm completely horrible for not feeding Emma breakfast. The side benefit was to treat her to breakfast at the bar before school. Emma was quite thrilled to get to school later and to eat a doughnut for breakfast on top of that.]