Friday, September 24, 2010

Where did Mommy Poot my tooth?

My oldest daughter, who I call Queen Bee, finally lost her top front tooth. It's been loose for weeks, enabling her to do all sorts of gross things with it. We've been calling her snaggle (short for snaggle tooth) for the way she could make it stick out between her lips with no other teeth showing. So this tooth has been the talk of the family for weeks.

Well it finally came out on Tuesday - so night of celebration and exciting tooth fairy planning? Uh, no. That is our night out and the sitter pretty much gets to our house when I get home. So we had about 10 minutes of high-fives, looking at the hole in her mouth, loo
king at the tooth, and then rush, rush rush. Go over dinner with the sitter, get changed, look at homework, feed the dogs and I'm out the door. Didn't think another minute about the tooth. I put it on the top counter, very obvious to anyone over 4 1/2 feet tall. Oops.

When I got home, after the kids were asleep, the babysitter informed me that QueenBee was very upset that she couldn't find her tooth to leave for the tooth fairy. She had looked everywhere and couldn't find it. So now the dilemma - do I put it under her pillow for her, or not? Would she want the dollar, or want the experience of putting it under herself? I chose to wait, figuring I could apologize in the morning and talk up how now Daddy could see it (he had been out of town until Wednesday night).

Well the morning was a disaster. On top of the fact that I have to get everyone up, ready and out the door by myself since my husband was out of town, I had clearly made the wrong choice when it came to the tooth. QueenBee was so upset she wouldn't speak to me (or do anything to get ready) for 30 minutes. Which of course led to frantic scrambling to get out the door, coupled with some yelling. Always good to yell at a kid who is already down, right?

Here is the topper - last night I found a note she had written to the tooth fairy. It had slid down the side of her bed. Here is what it said:


No mom of the year prize here, I tell you.


9 comments:

  1. Heartbreaking!! I hope you were able to salvage the situation. The tooth fairy forgot to come to our house once. I told J. she had emailed that she was running behind, but would be by before school let out. Bad, lying mom. Ugh. I blame DH being out of town. Too much to think about. Somedays my kids are lucky to be fed.

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  2. Angie - you should check out my friend's new blog: WorldsWorstMoms.com. It will definitely make you feel better ...and it's great for support too! And yes, I guess it was salvaged -the tooth fairy came the next night. I don't think QueenBee is holding a grudge!

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  3. Verity, you'll be happy to know that Angie and I are already hooked up! Although I don't know if she knows about WWM's. Anyway, Angie, I love the email thing. That's hysterical. And why are are freakin' husbands always out of town when these things happen? Anyway, love this story. It'll be on WWM's as well. Verity is becoming an actual columnist for the site, not just a contributor.:)

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  4. Hmmm....what does it mean to be a columnist for Worlds Worst Mom's...not sure if that is good for the kids. Two words: therapy fund.

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  5. When Ava lost her first tooth she wrote a letter to the tooth fairy saying that she wanted a dollar for her tooth. I thought, "Great, that shouldn't be so tough. I'm glad she did ask for a Wii." After she had gone to bed, I realized that I didn't have a dollar, so the tooth fairy wrote her a note saying, "10 dimes = 1 dollar for 1 tooth". She was not impressed or convinced that 10 dimes equals a dollar. At least we are starting out with low expectations so that no one is surprised when the tooth fairy leaves them an apple or a dirty sock in the future.

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  6. Perhaps we should add to the myth: the tooth fairy only comes for your first tooth or something like that. At that age I became determined to catch the tooth fairy. I would set trip wires and other traps all around my bed and wrap the tooth in kleenex, and put it in a box, and then tie a string from the box to the bed. . . you get the idea. I feel so sorry for my parents now.

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  7. oh CRUSHING. Heartbreaking. And so cute. This is a great story for her when she gets older. She will laugh about it someday!

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  8. Can't tell you how many Tooth Fairy visits I've forgotten over the years between my stepkids and my own kids. Here's my trick: when they come to you in tears saying, "the tooth fairy didn't come (sniff, sniff)... she didn't leave me AAAAnnnnnyyyyythingggggggg (wail)!" You look at the child in utter disbelief and annoyance and say, "are you sure? did you even check?" he or she will sadly nod. Upon which you say, "well, hmmmm.... let ME check... just a sec. go in and look some more and I'll be right there." Child then goes in to "look" some more. But we know how kids look. They don't often do a very good job. Meanwhile, you go get some $ and palm it, walk into the room totally business-like... "where did you look?" Child will show you. "Hmmmm, did you check the pillowcase? " (as you stuff your hand w/ palmed money into the pillowcase, because they pretty much never check there and even if they have there are corners you can say it was stuck in. Has worked every time ;-) Next time...

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  9. Ok...that is a genius idea! I'm definitely filing that one away for safe keeping!!!

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