Parenting fail number 378:
Not hiding your darlings little milk teeth properly so that they find one in your bedside draw along with the letter they wrote to their beloved tooth fairy, and come to you with big crocodile tears about to stream down their cheeks as they ask wide-eyed 'Why do you have my tooth and letter in there?'
Caught on the hop my mind raced ahead 'Should I tell her?', 'Do I start blatantly lying now?', 'What happens when she really finds out?', 'Will she tell all her friends in school?', 'Do they still believe', 'What if the Santa question comes next...?'
It was the last one that did it for me and after a pathetic 'Well what do you think?' bat back to her I launched into a full web of deceit.
Fortunately the lies tumbled out of me easily - I had checked under her pillow early on the morning when she had left it there and thought the tooth fairy may have forgotten her, and being a good mother and not wanting her to be disappointed I had taken the tooth and letter and put the money under her pillow myself.
I gave her a sidelong glance to see if she had bought it and was pretty sure I'd gotten away with it.
We then left the tooth, along with her original letter, plus a new letter from me apologising to the tooth fairy for stealing her loot (one of the more surreal letters I've had to write in my time I have to say.)
That night the tooth fairy left her money (double tooth score), a letter telling her to go easy on her mum and a little bottle of fairy dust so that she could sprinkle it under her pillow if she ever needed help believing.
As for me - I had a bottle of my own waiting for me to tackle.
So, crisis averted. This time.
It's made me realise that it's time to up my game though. Eight year olds are a lot smarter than four year olds and what I might have gotten away with a few years ago just won't cut it now.
So I'm applying my 'increase deceit' lesson to the forthcoming Santa season. Bring it on - I'm ready for you now madam!
