By Shannon Magsam, Ladybug’s mom
Ladybug lost a tooth at school the other day (#7) so she received one of those cool little plastic tooth-shaped containers to put it in for safe-keeping. This excitement apparently sparked a conversation amongst the second-graders about the validity of the Tooth Fairy.
And so it was that One of The (Many) Questions I Had Been Dreading was asked.
But she didn’t ask me. I handed the cell phone to her while driving home from school and she asked her dad. I only heard her half of the conversation:
L: “Is the Tooth Fairy real?”
[Me: Oh, crap! I’m glad she’s asking dad instead of me!]
L: Without pausing for a breath or an answer: “Some of my classmates said they don’t believe she’s real. They said it was your mom and dad who put the money under your pillow.”
[Me: What’s he gonna say? What’s he gonna say?]
Still no pause or expectation of an answer, apparently. Then the big one:
“They also said there’s no Santa Claus.”
Dun, dun, DUNNNNNN.
L: “I told them what we know about him. I told them there was hay right outside our door on Christmas Eve. They said ‘you must have a horse – because it wasn’t a reindeer at your house.’
“They were being very mean.”
By the time their conversation was over, my husband had neither confirmed nor denied the question(s). He just let her get it out of her system, then she moved on to another topic. That’s something I like about having a chatty girl.
After we got home, my husband called me, super indignant. We talked about what we should say if she asked again, point blank, and really seemed to want a real answer. We decided we’d have to tell her the truth at this age. And we will if she sincerely asks and wants to know.
I thought maybe I’d go with the mysterious phrase my friend Darlene told her son when he first questioned the existence of jolly old St. Nick: “If you don’t believe, you don’t receive….” That might hold her for a bit longer. I waited all evening, expecting her to ask for clarification on this whole Tooth Fairy/Santa thing.
It got to be bedtime, though, and she never brought it up again.
So the magic lives on, for at least a little while longer, in our household. She put the tooth under her pillow with a special note, fully expecting a tiny fairy to float in and snag her tooth, leave money and continue adding on to that tooth castle in the sky. (Fellow second-graders are notoriously untrustworthy you know.)
My husband was still annoyed about the kid who spilled the beans right up to the time we went to bed.
“I’d like to smack that kid,” he said.
I had to laugh. Protective daddies are so sexy.
This made me giggle and wince, all at the same time.
I’m glad you kept the mystery alive for a while longer.