Unshakeable Belief in the Tooth Fairy
I drew the “tuck the children into bed” straw this evening. After finding the antibiotics and nurofen for Miss 10, who has been very ill indeed since the weekend, she perked up in that way children do with the placebo effect of “taking something for whatever they have”.
As I got up to leave her room, she mentioned that the Tooth Fairy would be coming tonight.
Here's the thingthe tooth fairy should have come last night. She put the tooth under her pillow, and we quietly put a couple of coins to one side. Our eldest daughter then chose to go nuclear on us once again, and we spent the remainder of the evening fighting fires all over the house.
We forgot to put the money under the pillow.“Oh, did the tooth fairy not come last night?”“NoMum said she was caught in traffic”“I'm sure you're first on the list then. Better get to sleep, or you'll be awake when she gets here!“You've never seen a little girl screw her eyes up, and hold the duvet up to her chin so tightly. If ever there was a Despicable Me “Don't Grow Up” moment, this was itWatching the children grow up is very strange at times. While we hold onto their unsure moments, and their unshakeable belief in fairies, angels, and things that go bump in the night, we also get to see them make huge leaps forwards. We get to see them slowly become their own person.
After the nuclear incident with Miss 13 yesterday, I sat on her bed and had a pretty long talk about Mum and Dad being humanabout us being tired tooand ratty, and not perfect. I'm not sure how much of it went in one ear and out the other, but I like to hope a little bit of it sunk in. Perhaps part of growing up is to realise that your parents are not superbeingsthat they are just as fallible as anybody else, and that they make wrong decisions all the time.
I guess the one thing I can impress on the kids is that even when we make the wrong decision about something, it doesn't stop us. We keep going, we keep trying, and we don't give up. Somethings are hard, and sometimes we only realise if we did the right or wrong thing after we've done itand there are lessons to be learned in winning and losing.
Trying to explain anything about winning, losing, and pragmatism is kind of difficult though when you're dealing with little girls that fight over who sits in the front seat of the car, who gets the last cookie, or who's sitting where at the dinner table