i do believe in fairies...sorta

Warning: The following contains information that may well disappoint, if not completely crush Tooth Fairy Believers. Proceed with caution.

I was looking through pictures the other day and came across a pic of one of my older girls, grinning toothlessly at the camera. Actually, she wasn't completely toothless, just the-two-front-teethless. It was taken in the later days of Tooth Fairydom, back when we sort-of still remembered to take the teeth and leave some cash behind.

Who started this whole Tooth Fairy hubbub anyway? Probably some conniving kid, trying to find a way to make some quick cash for having normally developing bicuspids. Maybe it was his dad who secretly wanted to give his kid all his loose change; but alas, his strict upbringing of "you can't get something for nothing" wouldn't allow him to just give it away. So he was thrilled when his little boy lost his first tooth, and dad made up the tooth fairy right there. Well thanks a lot.

My oldest child lost her first tooth right before she went into kindergarten. She was adorably believing as she tucked her tooth in that night, anticipating untold riches under her pillow in the morning. About 30 minutes after she fell asleep, we crept back in, stole her tooth, and stuffed five bucks under her pillow. There. I said it. The truth's out: I am the Tooth Fairy. Well, okay, Dave and I are.

At least at my house.

Tooth number two was as slick as the first had been; got in, got out, one of us ended up a little richer, the other a little poorer, mission accomplished. But the night she lost her third tooth, we forgot Tooth Fairy duty.

She woke up the next morning completely disappointed; I would have been, too, I mean who doesn't like free money? I cleverly covered our blunder by explaining that the Tooth Fairy has a lot of teeth to pick up every night, and she was probably just overbooked. No doubt if we left it under the pillow, she'd be back.

I know, smooth.

I decided a little repentance was in order that night. I wrote a little note to her in sparkly golden ink -- not gold, golden. Tooth Fairies don't write in gold ink. I told her that I got stuck in Boston or something like that, told her she had the best teeth of any kid, ever, and signed it The Tooth Fairy. Then I took a bit of glitter and folded it inside the note -- what's more magical than glitter, after all? And for good measure (or guilt), I gave her a couple extra bucks. There. All better.

Too bad she didn't quit at the third tooth. From then on, every tooth was forgotten, either by a day or two, or once, as long as a week. Late pick-ups no longer included a handwritten, golden-inked, glitter-smattered note. They became unceremonious wads of dollar bills stuffed under the pillow, minutes before she woke up for breakfast. I think I even forgot to take the tooth one night, although Kam was denied trying to get another night's cash out of it. One tooth, one deposit.

By the time Mak lost her first tooth, I was all funned out; and I still had 3 kids to go, not including wrapping up all of Mak's and the rest of Kam's teeth. So the Tooth Fairy made one final pick-up the night Mak's first tooth came out.

When her second tooth fell out a few days later, we sat her down and made a deal. "Mak," I said. "The Tooth Fairy wants to make a bargain." Figuring we'd deposited at least 20 bucks into Kam's hot little hands over the past few years, I said, "The Tooth Fairy" (let's call her "Mom") "wants to give you 20 bucks for this tooth, and call it good for the rest of your teeth." "Twenty bucks now, and nothing for the rest of my teeth?" she asked. "That's the deal," I said. It took her about half a second. 20 bucks to a 3rd grader is the equivalent of a thousand bucks to an adult. "Deal," she said.

And from that day forward, the Tooth Fairy has never been seen or heard from again at our house. When the 3 youngest lost their first teeth, the same deal was made. Twenty bucks for the first tooth, you don't even have to leave it under your pillow, and we're done.

I'm thinking they should have held out for a little more. I just Googled the going rate of teeth these days; most kids are raking in 5 bucks a pop. 100 bucks, just for growing up; my kids should have at least gone for $50.

What can I say? That Tooth Fairy drives a hard bargain.

now that's motherhood...

So lately when something funny happens at my house, TheBoy will immediately turn to me and say, "You can't put this on your blog." Dang. PS, that gag rule is partly responsible for my lack of posts lately. Actually, some quite amusing things have happened with my girls recently that no one has forbidden me to blog about; but alas, there are some levels of privacy I have to respect, at least until some time has passed and readers wouldn't know immediately who I'm referring to.

Respecting their privacy, that's a good mommy thing, right? I can't help but ask, since we just celebrated another Mother's Day. This year, the little kids at church sang two "Mother" songs, only one of which centered around flowers. That's a good thing. For years primary kids have been honoring their mothers with sappy songs about love and flowers.

Now I love my kids. I adore my kids. I love them with that ache that makes you want to hold them right as they are and never let them grow up. I love them so much that if I think about it, it makes it hard to breathe. I never had a clue what it felt like to really, really, truly, love until I became a mother. So I suppose I get the sappy love bit. But how come Dads get the fun songs? "I'm so glad when daddy comes home," "My dad's the greatest dad," you know, "dads are awesome" kind of songs.

Mothers get cheesy poetry set to music. Seriously. Here are the words to one of the Mother's Day favorites:

"I often go walking in meadows of clover; and I gather armfuls of blossoms of blue. I gather the flowers the whole meadow over. Dear mother, all flowers remind me of you."

Now first of all, how many kids do you know who have ever even seen a meadow of clover, let alone gathered armfuls of blue blossoms there? Then on top of that, why, pray tell, would flowers remind my kids of me? I would rather I get a song that falls more along these lines:

"I often go walking, because you won't drive me; and I make my breakfast, 'cause you're at the gym. I know that you love me because you make me clean my room up. Dear Mother, you're awesome, hey, this song's for you."

or maybe "I often come down to your bedroom on Saturdays. And I squish with my siblings, between you and dad. We all laugh and talk there, and you usually cackle. That loud laugh is the one thing that always reminds me of you..."

Now that's a Mother's Day song.

In addition to songs about flowers, the leadership of our ward likes to give out a small mother's day gift to each woman, age 18 and over. It's a time-honored tradition, passed down from Brigham Young I'd wager, in every ward in the Church. For years, the moms all got a geranium, which is a bit of a bummer if your talent with plants is as inadequate as mine. A few years ago they started branching out from the traditional geranium: a couple years ago I got a pansy.

My mother-in-law laughingly told me of one Mother's Day, when she witnessed the perfect picture of motherhood walking out of church. In the crook of one arm of a frazzled-looking young mother was a car seat, occupied not with a baby, but a large bag; no doubt the bag was her "church bag," filled with various games and activities, and likely a few dry Cheerios, each engineered to get two small children through sacrament meeting quietly. On the end of that arm was an energetic 2-year-old, dragging his mother by the hand, impatient to free himself of his tie and shiny shoes after 3 hours of discomfort. Over the other shoulder of this mom hung a diaper bag, and in that arm squirmed the baby. As she juggled her various burdens, in her free hand she held the trophy of Mothers Day: There was the geranium from the Bishopric, missing about half the dirt, and bent over at an odd angle that signalled the premature demise of the plant. Now that is knock-down, drag-out, motherhood at it's finest.

What's weird about that is the fact that I remember those days, and I remember more experienced moms (usually grandmas), walking by with a smile and saying, "Oh, hold onto it; it all goes by so fast." And I'd be thinking, "Have you completely lost your mind? This so-called 24-hour-day has already lasted 58-hours, and we're only half over. This day will surely never end, and when it does, I'll just have to start over to do it again in the morning."

But it did. It went by too fast. On mother's day, we pulled out the home videos and watched our favorites; being the sap that I am, I cried every time I watched my kids crying in the videos. I'd cry and think, "Someone put down the video camera and get the twins out of their high chair! Then hold them. Just hold them, and stay up too late holding them; let them fall asleep in your arms, and maybe then, you can think about putting them down." Because heaven knows, 9-year-olds don't respond to being held in the same snugly way as 1-year-olds.

Oh, that's the delicious stuff of aches. Deep, painful, beautiful, I am so in love with you, heartaches. That's motherhood. I love it. It's all I've ever wanted to do, and I absolutely love it.

For the record, if our home videos were confiscated and used as evidence, we'd be convicted of

1) Never, ever changing a soggy diaper
2) Rarely clothing our children
3) Never wiping running noses or dirty faces
or
4) Pulling out the video camera only when at least one, but usually two or more of the above applies.

Oh well. Happy Mother's Day anyway.