For sale online: ruby slippers for $17.48 plus $7.95 shipping. Or plain $10 slippers, $0.98 vials of red glitter and $2 glue. Donald Trump, I ask you. Suze Orman, you, too. What would you do?
My daughter swallowed a loose tooth yesterday, or did she? It was there one minute, then gone the next. We scoured the house on all fours, and re-examined stark white tissues blotted with blood from her gums. “What if the tooth fairy won’t come,” she cried. “Now, now, the tooth fairy doesn’t need the actual tooth, she just needs you to lose it,” I explained. Her streaming tears oiled loose the hinges of her classroom door. “The girl who sits next to me is very unkind,” she confessed. I learned that it’s been bad for a week. The topic has eluded our walks to school, afternoons on the sofa, dinnertime chats, bedtime stories, and weekend drapey drapes.
It was late last night when I finished the email to her teacher, filling her in, saying I’d be at school early to confer. I forgot about the tooth. Later, I wrote my client, “I’ll be up another half hour if you want to call about the kitchen island.” The base cabinet wasn’t built the way we intended, and it cost a lot of money. We’re sorting it out, night-owl to night-owl.
This morning at 6:30, I heard my daughter’s footsteps down the hall. As she approached my bed in the dark, I could see her excited eyes. In her outstretched hand she held a note she’d found under her pillow. She thought it was from the tooth fairy. But it was her own letter explaining the missing tooth. The note I’d forgotten to retrieve and respond to after navigating around the bully and the island.
“Go see if she left you a treasure,” I whispered, sending her back to her room. “Tiptoe,” I added, glancing over at my sleeping husband. When I joined her a few minutes later, she was seated on the edge of her bed. “There’s nothing here,” she said. I said, “Let’s look together.” As we pushed aside bed linens, I planted a gold Sacagawea dollar under a pillow, the pink one with the rosebud print. Minutes before, my outstretched fingers had felt for the coin along the crowded top shelf of my closet. It was exactly where I’d left it—a lady in waiting for this purpose. “Did you check under all your pillows?” I asked. Her hands swept the crumpled sheets. Raising the tiny brass disc for me to see, her innocent, toothless smile outshone the rising light of day.
Who, in their right mind, could ever ever say that little things don’t mean alot? It is the lOO’s of small moments and slivers of events that get us through our day – give us the strength and optimism to survive, spiritually. So, for our children, too. The ruby slippers ARE important – and there is NO going back, years from now, trying to make up the omission we “committed” because we “didn’t have time”. Ruby slippers and correct interaction with the Tooth Fairy are HUGE in our children’s minds. The bully’s sting is HUGE, too. Ah, the conflicts of kitchen island crises and grade sheets crises and getting the reports in on time at the office crises — ALL HUGE. There ARE times when we, as parents need a symbolic Sacajawea coin under OUR pillow, too. If only . . .
The tooth fairy was remiss in her duties one night in our house. When my son awoke to find his tooth, I told him that she probably just hadn’t gotten to our house yet; that perhaps a lot of children lost a tooth the day before. When he came home from school and found his treasure, he exclaimed, “You were right, Mom. The tooth fairy was really busy last night! She was at Phyllida’s house!” (Phyllida, a classmate, had also lost a tooth the evening before.) Serendipity is lovely!
The Tooth Fairy is a very, very busy little sprite. I know this to be true, because a similar scene unfolded once with my step-daughter… But, the Tooth Fairy did NOT forget about the tooth. She was just a little bit late picking it up.
I love that story. Quick thinking, Mama!