That’s Not How the Tooth Fairy Works!

I got a text yesterday from my husband that another tooth had fallen out of my 7 year old’s mouth. Between his hair resembling a cockatoo, the many holes left from baby teeth falling out and the red mustache that appeared when he drank Gatorade, my son was just 1 step away from a trailer park.

“Great!” I said sarcastically to no one in particular. I was at work and only had about 30 minutes left in the day. I have been fighting off the flu for several days now which resulted in what I like to call the mom version of my husband’s flu which resembled him giving birth through his mouth.

“God damn it! Now I have to play tooth fairy tonight. All I wanted to do was drink a few or four glasses of wine and chill. Now I have to attempt to pull a tooth from under C’s pillow and deposit a $5 bill.”

The words were out before I could stop myself. I knew what was going to happen next. Several twenty somethings were going to chime in and attempt to play the “back in my day, we only received a dollar” card. Having a decade on them, I was surprised inflation did not allow for a tooth fairy increase as I received a $1 in the early 80’s.

“$5? Oh my God. Is that what kids get these days?” A Kim Kardashian-esque, 20 something asked. Her opinion was never taken into consideration as she had the intelligence of a bowl and would say things like “it was lost in translation” when referring to her vendor shipment that was lost in transit.

“Yeah. That’s the going rate these days. If you give’em any less you will hear about it and how super mom somehow slipped a $20 bill, a Nerf gun and a dozen, freshly baked cookies under a classmates pillow for one tooth. It’s basically a pissing match among parents.”

Later that night, I opted for NyQuil in lieu of wine, set my alarm for 11 pm and fell asleep after an hour of Netflix. I set the alarm so I wouldn’t forget about my son’s tooth and how groggy Nyquil makes you.

For anyone that has taken NyQuil and Ambien (not together of coarse) you’ll know that NyQuil is like the kid sister of Ambien, leaving you in a complete fog after the medicine takes hold.

A few hours later the alarm went off at 11. I noticed my husband was now watching tv next to me.

“Can you just go get the tooth and slip this under his pillow?” I asked him in a groggy voice as I handed him a 5 dollar bill.

“Yeah,” he said hesitantly as he took it. Had I not been sick, he probably would have protested.

I fell back asleep immediately. This was short lived as 2 minutes later, my husband came in to tell me he had failed the mission.

“I got the tooth but then he started to stir. I didn’t give him the money.”

I looked at him in disgust. I have done 100% of the tooth extractions as well as money drop offs with a 100% success rate. The fact that he couldn’t do 1 was baffling to me.

“Just give me the $5,” I said, in an annoyed voice.

I wobbled to my son’s room. C was peacefully sleeping in his bunk. He was laying on his left side with his hands in prayer position, under his head. He looked so angelic.

My husband was right. There was no way to slip the $5 under his pillow without waking him up. He was laying on the pillow’s edge. In my medicine fog I walked out and into my room.

“Did you do it?”

“Nope, he’ll wake up.” I said as I gave the $5 back to him. I think with the medicine fog all I wanted to do was fall asleep so I was turning the reins back over to him.

This morning I woke up and peeked inside C’s room. He had his legs flung over the bunk onto the ladder and was whimpering a little.

“Baby what’s wrong?” I asked.

“My tooth is gone but the tooth fairy didn’t leave me any money?”

My first thought was ‘I am going to kill him.’ Then I looked over to the little ledge nightstand that is screwed on to his bunk. There, folded up and sandwiched between the ledge lip and the alarm clock was a $5.

“Wait. What’s that?” I asked looking at the bill.

C followed my gaze and suddenly he began to smile.

“See. The tooth fairy didn’t forget. She just probably didn’t want to wake you up.”

Although things turned out ok, all I thought was, ‘this is NOT how the tooth fairy works. You put the stupid money under the stupid pillow so the kid is not in tears when they wake up.