The Tooth Fairy is an Idiot

We've known each other a long time so let's be totally honest with one another, ok?

I am not a fan of the Tooth Fairy.  I've accused her of drunkenness in the past and you can read about it here.  Is the Tooth Fairy a Drunk?

I think inviting a stranger into your home late at night to take your children's teeth in exchange for a handful of coins is a gruesome, morbid idea.

However, the Tooth Fairy has never truly slacked off at our house.  Our biggest problem has been the Tooth Fairy's drunkenness dementia.  She'll leave one child 75 cents for one tooth and a week later she'll leave another child $1.25 for a tooth.  You can imagine the kind of familial discord this creates.  Sure, I have friends who report the Tooth Fairy sometimes doesn't show for days, but we've never had that experience at our house.

Until now.

In fairness, my son is eleven years old.  I'm pretty sure he may know where the Tooth Fairy sleeps at night.  You know what I mean?

Never-the-less, as the sun was rising the morning after his gnarly baby tooth fell out, he bounced out of bed and announced, "Look!  The Tooth Fairy didn't come!"

I didn't quite know what to say so I asked, " Hmmmm....why do you think she forgot?"

"Because she's an idiot?"

Well, that stung.

After all these years, I know the Tooth Fairy pretty well.  I know she was feeling exhausted and over worked the previous day and she probably just honestly totally forgot that this precious, sweet child had lost a tooth.

Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming urge to defend the drunken flake of a fairy.

"You know, son, she probably didn't come because you didn't actually put the tooth under your pillow.  You put it on your nightstand.  I think she only visits when the tooth is clearly under a pillow."

Yeah, it's HIS fault the flake didn't leave any money for him.

Amazingly, he had no retort to this as my logic was so sound.  Everybody knows the tooth goes under the pillow!  Duh!  This is just another example of my superior parenting skills. Make your child feel as if he is responsible for the Tooth Fairy's irresponsibility.  Brilliant.

In our house, teeth fall out in pairs. Once one tooth falls out, his buddy tooth isn't far behind.  Sure enough, days later another tooth fell out of my son's very crowded mouth.  This time he seemed less excited about the Tooth Fairy's impending visit. I, however, was excited.  An opportunity for the Tooth Fairy to get it right!  How many more baby teeth could possible exist in his mouth anyway?  The Tooth Fairy was running out of opportunities to perform her job flawlessly.

"The tooth Fairy is coming tonight!" I shouted while doing a little jig that immediately drew I ridicule from my 13 year old daughter.  Funny how I can embarrass her even in the privacy of our own home.

I was just sure the Tooth Fairy would not forget. Not this night!

Here's the thing about the Tooth Fairy.  She can seem really energetic and excited around 7:00 P.M., but two hours later she can be nearly comatose with exhaustion.  The older these baby teeth get, the harder it is for her to stay up long enough to collect them.  When this exhaustion is too great for her, she sometimes contracts the job out to her sidekick.  You know, Mr. Tooth Fairy.

Well, if I thought the Tooth Fairy was a flake, Mr. Tooth Fairy redefines the concept of "half-assed."

The next day I asked my son what the Tooth Fairy left him.

Without looking up from his plate he said, "Ah, a buck or so, but the Tooth Fairy forgot to take the tooth."

"What?" I asked incredulously.

"Sometimes this happens," my hubby blurted out defensively.

Yeah, my son is right.  The Tooth Fairy is kind of an idiot.

Are We There Yet?

Long road trips are a time for family members to reflect on just how much they hate long family road trips.

I could go on and on and on about our recent long road trip, but I'm willing to bet it's remarkably similar to every other family's long road trip.

Here is one sentence summing up our recent road trip:
A 10 hour road trip morphs into an ugly 12 hour adventure due to traffic, mother nature, emergency pee breaks, and one vomiting son.

Who can't relate to that, right?  Just your typical 12 hour journey to hell and back.  Woohoo! Are we there yet? Nope, only 11 more hours to go!

After miraculously surviving that experience, I prepared for my post road trip pity party.  You know what that includes, right?

You arrive home from the long road trip and immediately begin drowning in dirty laundry and unopened mail, while trying to figure out where that strange smell is coming from...What IS that smell?

Just prior to that fun experience, my sister helped me put it all in perspective.

She has three children between the ages of 2 and 7.  In addition to traffic and thunderstorms, I know her trip included emergency pee breaks, unstoppable "Are we there yet?" whining, and crying (most likely from her husband).

Upon arriving home to an obscene smell and 13 pounds of junk mail, I texted her to see if she had arrived home safely.

Here is our text message exchange:

Me:  You home yet?

Sis:  We left at 3:40 AM.  Only 4 more hours.  Got stuck in McDonalds because Ellery's fairies wouldn't come out of the bathroom.

Me:  Huh?

Sis:  Ellery's fairies wouldn't come out of bathroom stall. This is a true story!

Me:  That's hilarious!

Sis:  Yeah.  Freaking hysterical.

Sis:  Line full of peeps waiting to pee and I have a sobbing 4 year old talking about her missing fairies.  Someday this will be funny, right?

Me:  I assume the fairies finally cooperated?

Sis:  Only after I made a big deal about seeing glittery flutters on her palm.  We looked certifiable.

So, dear readers, until you find yourself hours from home in a tiny stall with a sobbing four year old who refuses to leave without her fairies, consider your road trip a complete breeze!

At least right up until you realize what's causing that smell.  Then all bets are off as you realize traffic and a vomiting son is nothing compared to the cause of that smell.

The Essentials

Dear Family and Friends,

Last week Mother Nature went ape shit threw a temper tantrum of epic proportion.

She threw trees, branches, patio furniture, and then cried like she has never cried before. Making matters worse, like any toddler would, she decided to throw this fit just as our babysitter arrived. Hubby and I had been planning date night.

As my family stood in our dining room with our babysitter, we watched Mother Nature knock down a 30 foot tall tree and fling it towards our house. At that moment our power went off, and I ordered all of us to the basement.

An hour later, Mother Nature was in time out and the babysitter was sent home. The rest of us sat in the dark looking at one another. We became remarkably loving towards one another and patient. Near death experiences can do that to a family.

The next day we did what everyone else in our county decided to do. We went to the grocery store to buy "essentials." Power was out and we were being told it could be 5-7 days before it would be restored. This news is code for "go shopping."

Here's the great thing about "essentials": it's all in the eye of the beholder.
Since there were a mere 7200 people crammed into our local grocery store, I had plenty of time to look in other people's carts to see what they felt they needed in the coming days.

My favorite cart was pushed by a young man who clearly lived simply. His cart had 2 wine boxes and chips. Another woman had a cart loaded with grilling supplies, dog food and corn. I saw several carts full of practical things like water, bread, and peanut butter.

I was fascinated by all the varieties of cart content until I took a moment to look into my own cart. It was unquestionably the most bizarre. I had (and I really don't know why I'm compelled to share this) 2 cases of bottled water, 1 box of brown rice, 2 cans of black beans, 24 rolls of toilet paper, 2 rolls of paper towels, and toilet bowl cleaner.

Apparently, I was worried about dehydration and exploding bowels.

We all have our hang-ups, I suppose.

I hope the rest of you are fairing well.

Waiting for the Electricity Fairy to visit us as we enjoy our beans and rice comforted by the knowledge that we will have clean butts and toilets,

Jen
Days 1 & 2 of no electricity

The Fairy I Fear Most

I'm certainly not afraid of the Tooth Fairy.
I know she is an unorganized twit that I could totally overtake, but I'm absolutely terrified of her evil cousin.

In our house we call her the Knot Fairy. Trust me, you don't want to tick her off.

She torments my daughter about 4 times a week.

She sneaks into my daughter's room at night and uses her fairy powers to create massive knots throughout my daughter's hair. Honestly, Medusa has nicer hair in the morning than my daughter.

The other day, the Knot Fairy actually left red yarn and a Littlest Pet Shop Toy in my daughter's hair. It looked as though the tiny chipmunk was imprisoned in a web of tangled hair and yarn.

The only thing scarier than the Knot Fairy is my daughter when she tries to undo the Fairy's knots.

My apologies to our neighbors who live within a ten mile radius of our home. That screeching, high pitched, going-to-break-glass sound on Tuesday morning was not an injured wild animal. It was my daughter extracting the Littlest Pet Shop toy from her mane of hair. Please send your hate mail to the Knot Fairy.

The fact that the Knot Fairy doesn't visit her brother only reinforces and strengthens my daughter's resolve to hunt down and destroy the fairy. I don't blame her.

She has recently resorted to braiding her wet hair each night. The Knot Fairy can't penetrate the braids, but you should see the Punk Rock hairdo those braids create in the light of day.

Just give the girl some leg warmers and a friendship pin and she's a flashback to 1981.

Poor child.

Is the Tooth Fairy a Drunk?

I think it's a reasonable question.

How else can one explain why sometimes the Tooth Fairy will leave one child 50 cents for a tooth and down the street another child receives $20?

I've even heard stories about the Tooth Fairy "forgetting" to come at night or being too "busy" to stop. The poor child needs to wait an extra night for the cash. I'm looking for alternative explanations other than the Tooth Fairy's drunkenness, but none come to mind.

Santa never screws up like that, and he has to deliver gifts to ALL children on the SAME night. The Tooth Fairy would crumble under such pressure.

Perhaps the Tooth Fairy could learn a few things from Santa.

Here's an idea for the Tooth Fairy to endorse: Practice poor oral hygiene and the Tooth Fairy isn't coming. Why would a fairy want a smelly, yellow tooth? As it is, drunk Tooth Fairy takes whatever he gets. Even Santa knows that only good little boys and girls get presents. Naughty ones get nothing but coal.

Make it fair, fairy! Geez, even your name suggests you support fairness and equality! My own kids are appalled that sometimes they get 75 cents for a tooth and sometimes they get $1.75.

What is wrong with you that you just can't remember that $1 is adequate for a baby tooth?

Any more than $1 leads to extreme hardship on the parents. Have you ever taken a child with $5 into a dollar store? You practically need to bring an overnight bag. The experience is laborious. How is a child expected to choose a one dollar item in that store when there are literally 1.7 million options. (Yes, I counted! What else is a reasonable adult suppose to do in that store for four and a half hours?)

I see only one solution to this problem.

Unless the Tooth Fairy is going to consider rehab (and my sources tell me this is unlikely), parents need to unite and demand that the Tooth Fairy set reasonable price caps on the value of our children's teeth.

Since we cannot count on the Tooth Fairy to be fair and consistent, I vote for $1 per tooth unless, of course, it's a canine. Those bad boys should fetch at least $1.25.

We must reign in the drunk Tooth Fairy! Are you with me?