Ali asked me tonight why I put money under his pillow. I tried to play it cool, but it turns out he really had caught me red-handed a couple of weeks ago, making the tooth fairy drop.
It started with concern that his tooth had come in almost completely and the baby tooth hadn't fallen out yet, paving the way for a future of braces. Even though the tooth wasn't very loose (I told him to keep wiggling it) H decided to pull it while I was out of the house. We decided that was worthy of a lot of money from the tooth fairy.
However, Ali wasn't sleeping in his bed, but in the camper with Grandma and Grandpa. I completely forgot (as usual) to put money under his pillow, and my mom told me the next morning that they had put some money on his bed. I wanted to put some more money, so went in to augment their contribution. Then I remembered these cool dollar coins I'd gotten in change from the train ticket machine, so went to get those. Just as I was getting them onto the bed, Ali came in. I thought the sight of the money had distracted him, but alas, I found out tonight, it was only a temporary distraction. Besides which, he heard me say, "I almost got caught!"
So now he knows the tooth fairy isn't real, but he's going to keep believing anyway. And he went ahead and told his sister, too.
I've always forgotten with Leila, too. Usually she forgets to check under her pillow, too, and I get a chance to sneak it under, but one morning she came in to tell me that the tooth fairy had forgotten to come. When I checked it out a few minutes later, I found that the money had "fallen" to the floor. Whew! Quick thinking saved me.
Last time Ali lost a tooth it was on the soccer field!
Ali has decided he needs to believe in the tooth fairy and so has talked himself into a new version of what he say. Apparently, I was just checking that the tooth fairy had visited when he caught me. He seems to think Leila wrote her a letter because she was a few days late.
They know Santa isn't real, but they talk about how it's possible to believe in the tooth fairy but not Santa. I don't quite understand their logic, but I'll try to be better at remembering the money!
2 comments:
There was a strange experience for Alec in learning about the tooth fairy. One friend told him that his dad said the tooth fairy was real, and that his dad never lies. But Alec had experienced this very dad lying to him (as in the month before Alec came to me asking about this dad "why would he lie to me?"). So when another friend said they'd caught their parent as the tooth fairy, Alec knew not to trust the lying dad. We don't mind the kids knowing the truth, but we have fun pretending together... kind of a wink,wink between us.
That's generally our take on it- I think it's strange that they do believe since we've told them Santa isn't real, and they get the pretend factor there.
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