When you spawn a lot of kids in a short amount of time, it's inevitable that some long standing familial traditions will become lost along the way due to sheer parental exhaustion. We decided to follow through with the timeless charade of 'The Tooth Fairy'. You know, the benevolent winged being that appears out of the ether and descends towards a child's pillow during the nocturnal hours. They deftly maneuver around the streams of kiddie drool to swap out lost and bloodied teeth for money.After awhile, the fallen teeth really started to pile up around here. So much so, that I freakin could have gone into a denture making business. Occasionally, I found myself without the proper coinage to make the sneaky switch. One morning we woke up to two sounds. The first belonged to our oldest daughter, Sunbum, who was sobbing inconsolably that the Tooth Fairy had forgotten her. Sunbum followed that mournful observance by announcing that she had wet her bed........ again. Any sort of sympathy or parental guilt over the forgotten tooth/money exchange dissolved immediately when looking at her sodden, wet sheets. The overpowering stench rivaled a men's urinal down at the decrepit neighborhood sports bar. (Don't ask me how I know that)I turned to her whimpering 5 year old self and told her in my best super sacharrine mommy voice, "Oh, this is really awful, baby. You peed your bed again and drowned the poor Tooth Fairy in a big, nasty pee puddle". Even worse, I informed Sunbum that the Tooth Fairy received a swishy toilet funeral and farewell because the weather outside proved too cold to dig a hole and carry forth with proper Tooth Fairy burial rights.
Thus far we've blissfully escaped giving out lost tooth money for the past 5 years. However, the other children continue to glare menacingly at Sunbum and point the finger of blame towards her for their missed financial opportunities. BAD, BAD PARENTING SKILLS! But then, is it really right to propogate lies and pretend that we're tooth obsessed fairies, giant chocolate egg bearing bunny rabbits, and a fat man with a milk and cookie fetish?
