Queen Mab and the Tooth Fairy

Sunday afternoon, Her Highness was getting fidgety in that sort of way that she often does when she needs a nap and therefore won’t stop moving for fear she might accidentally doze off. So we sent her downstairs with strict orders to CHILL OUT AND READ A BOOK OR SOMETHING. David and the boys (who had both already had their afternoon quiet times) went for a walk to enjoy the sunshine, and I made myself some tea.

Or at least, I started to make some tea, but I was interrupted by bloodcurdling screams from downstairs. “MOMMY! MOMMY!!!!!” To be perfectly frank, Mab screams aren’t necessarily a sign of an emergency, so I walked to the top of the stairs and asked what was wrong. She was holding her mouth and crying….and then went back into the bedrooms? Very strange. I went downstairs to her.

“I lost my tooth!” she sobbed, her mouth bloody, and indeed there was no tooth. My stomach backflipped—I hate teeth, especially when there’s blood involved. So I said, “Ok, let’s go to the bathroom,” because if there was going to be blood, the bathroom tiles were the best place for it, and it gave me time to figure out something else responsible and maternal to do about the situation.

But Mab already knew what needed done (thanks to a Fancy Nancy book, I think) and started swishing with cold water. Well that was good. Then she told me she wasn’t sure where the tooth was, but it was probably around *my* bedroom door. She was much happier now.

Um….why was it around my bedroom door?

Well, we got down on our hands and looked, and I pressed her for answers about how and why her tooth was lost next to my door.

“It’s not like I did anything silly like tie my tooth to a string and tie it to the door and shut the door like some people do!” she said, laughing awkwardly.

“Oh?”

She told me that she was just chewing on a string and relaxing and the string just happened to be tied to the door and then her tooth just fell out and then she panicked and hid the string….?

I hadn’t even been aware of her having a tooth that loose. She’d mentioned it to me once, but I’d forgotten because she’s been talking about this or that tooth being loose for months, ever since her friends and cousin started losing teeth over the summer. So I hadn’t thought anything of it.

We put the little tooth in her coin jar.

Then her shiny-stuff-hoarding-dragon-of-a-little-brother got into her money. I rescued the money, but the tooth was lost. She left a note for the tooth fairy,

who understood. I suspect this happens frequently in her line of work.

I felt a little hypocritical about this part, actually—we’ve always been very clear with the kids that Santa is a fun game we play together, and I don’t think we’ve even mentioned the Easter Bunny. But I wasn’t sure what she thought about the tooth fairy.

Mab, as you can maybe tell from her nickname, has had an affinity for fairies ever since her Auntie Kate dubbed her Queen of the Fairies at 6 months old. And as much as I hate tricking my kids into thinking that a red-suited reverse-burglar left them the presents that I purchased for them myself, with things like fairies, I’ve been very non-committal about their existence or lack thereof. I hedge about the impossibility of proving non-existence, but it's probably more to do with secretly hoping fairies do exist.

So I was relieved when one of Mab’s favorite church grownups, Miss Beth, said that Mab had told her that she’d noticed the tooth fairy’s handwriting looked a lot like mine!

I haven’t said anything to her about this. It’s not that I have anything against tooth fairies—it’s that I don’t like the idea of lying to her—playing make-believe *at* her. But playing make-believe *with* her is awesome.