The toothfairy is incompetent

Remember how I told you that sometimes the tooth fairy in my house forgets to leave the loot? Well, I thought that was the worst I could do, but it turns out I was wrong. Oh so wrong. And there was no getting out of it easily this time either.

Little Dario lost one of his top front teeth. It had been loose for so long, and he was really happy to finally have it pulled out and to be able to leave it for the tooth fairy so he could score some cash. He was all smiles right before he went to bed.

See?

I told him to go put his tooth in a glass for the tooth fairy and leave it on the counter next to the refrigerator. He went downstairs to do it and came back up and said, "I put it in a tall glass so she'll find it easier!" Good plan son. Good plan.

Dario falls asleep fairly quickly so I was sure that I wouldn't forget this time around. Well, I was almost wrong about that, but then just before I headed up to bed that evening, I remembered. And believe me, I was plenty proud of myself, and frankly, relieved that I wouldn't have to confront a crying Dario the next day with an explanation of how the tooth fairy must have injured a wing or something and couldn't fly to our house that night.

My relief was very shortlived however, when after I had dug 4 quarters out of the coin jar and come back to the kitchen to swap the tooth out with them, I saw no glass. And definitely no tooth. Okay, Dario must have just put it on the wrong counter, I told myself. So I checked the other counters. Nope, not there. Then I thought that maybe I emptied it into the sink by accident, but I checked the counter by the sink and there were no tall glasses. Still, I had big Dario dig down into the disposal to make sure it wasn't in there. Nope. Now I was starting to worry a little. Dario and I began to check all around the house. We checked all the bathroom counters. Both of us even dug under little Dario's pillow just in case he had changed plans thinking the toothfairy would figure it out. No tooth. How in the world could this happen? I could just imagine the disappointment on little Dario's face in the morning when he didn't find his quarters in the glass where he had left his tooth. I couldn't just pull out any glass, because our glasses are all mismatched and I had no idea what kind of glass he had left his tooth in.

And yes, I realize now that I probably could've left the money on the counter without a glass and it might not have phased him, but that's just not how my mind works, okay? It has to be done just exactly right or I'm afraid my kids will catch on to the truth, just like how I have to have all the presents from Santa wrapped in a different type of wrapping paper than the ones that are from us. It just HAS to be that way. And so it doesn't occur to me that I could fudge a little and it probably wouldn't matter. If that had occurred to me, maybe I wouldn't have done what I did next, which was to make my son cry.

Because, after both Dario and I had searched the house in vain and had found no sign of the tooth, the only solution that I could see was to wake Dario up and ask him if he had left his tooth out for the toothfairy, and when he replied that he had, and reiterated that yes, he had left it next to the fridge, and yes, it was in a glass, and yes, he was sure, I proceeded to tell him that I thought I had lost his tooth, and that I would write the toothfairy a note and ask her to please leave something anyway because it was all my fault.

And then he cried.

Because I am a bad mom.

So I wrote the toothfairy a note:

And then, what do you know? The tooth fairy wrote back, in handwriting very similar to my husband's, and also Santa's, and also left 4 shiny new quarters.

And little Dario woke up the next morning and was pleased as punch to see his quarters on the counter, and didn't even read the notes. So all was well.

Except for the fact that later that morning my husband noticed that there was a bloody little tooth lying in the bottom of my water glass on my nightstand which I had been sipping from all night.