I am a bad parent. I freely admit this. There are things that I do that I would not do if I were a good parent. Like say, messing with my kids’ minds.
Princess lost a tooth last Friday. She got so excited when that tooth cames out. She just couldn’t wait for the Tooth Fairy to show up! Unfortunately, Princess has bad parents who have a hard time remembering to put in a call to the Tooth Fairy to arrange for a drop-off. Princess was so disappointed the next morning when she woke up and found her tooth still in its little tooth pillow and no dollar left in its place. Oops. I could have sworn I told the Hubster to call the Tooth Fairy, but somehow…
Anyway, last night when I tucked her in, I told Princess the reason the Tooth Fairy had not shown up was probably because she had inherited her mother’s screwed-up Tooth Fairy.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Princess demanded, her face scrunched up in wary disbelief.
“It means that when I was your age, I used to lose my teeth too, but the Tooth Fairy had problems getting to my house to drop off the money. And sometimes, when the Tooth Fairy did arrive, she made mistakes.”
Princess cocked an eyebrow at me. “What kind of mistakes?”
“Well, once, instead of leaving me a dollar, she left me a walnut. And then one time when she did remember to bring a dollar, she gave it to the neighbor’s dog instead of me.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously! So if you don’t find a dollar under your pillow tomorrow, I suggest you check with the cats, because chances are good she gave your dollar to one of them. But I’d check right away, because Hiccup strikes me as the kind of cat that would spend your dollar really quick!.”
Well, that pack of tall tales got me a few giggles, and seemed to put to rest any worries Princess had about the Tooth Fairy not loving her enough to come visit. I made sure to tell Hubster before going to bed to make arrangements for the Tooth Fairy, and this morning Princess came dancing into our bedroom with a crisp dollar bill.
“Look what I got from the Tooth Fairy! A whole dollar!”
“What? No walnut?” I asked.
“Moooooooom!”
I’m a bad parent, but I’m a pretty good liar, so maybe that balances things out.
