That Other Place

Last night, as the boys were getting ready for bed, the boys were talking about our lazy tooth fairy. I hate to tell you, but she skipped over our house two nights ago. Ben was certain it was because he slept in Mitchell's bed that night and it confused her. I'm glad he came to that conclusion. Let's hope she actually found him last night and did her job!

Talking about the tooth fairy got them on the topic of things they believe in which they have never actually seen, which led from the tooth fairy right to Santa. Ben said, "You know, not everyone thinks the Tooth Fairy is real. Some people think Santa isn't real too." We asked him who thinks this, and while he didn't have an answer, he was pretty sure the validity of these characters is often in question. We asked if he thought they were real and he said "Yeah, I think they are real, I'm just saying some people don't."

From Santa, we moved to Jesus, another person Ben believes in but is quite frustrated that he can't see him. Although there are not a lot of similarities between Santa and Jesus, we seem to always talk about them in the same conversation! Must be more similar to a kid than I tend to think...

Mitchell was listening to all this and jumped in here with some of his hard-thought-out opinions. "Yeah, mom, some people don't believe in Jesus and those people have to go the bad heaven!"

I just wonder what his imagination pictures for him when he sees the two options after death: good heaven and bad heaven. Is the good one the one where you don't have to eat your vegetables and you get to stay up late, while the bad one is the one were every dinner is the dreaded mashed potatoes and you have to go to bed while it is still light out?

"Bad heaven" made Matt and me smile. We haven't talked a lot about the alternative to heaven with the boys, but he pieced that one together on his own.

I'll Cut Her Some Slack... This Time

We have been talking a lot about the Tooth Fairy in our house lately. Ben's first loose tooth has been wiggling and wobbling for over a month now. I think the excitement of having a loose tooth is a lot more exciting and a lot less scary than the thought of actually loosing that tooth for him, so he has been in absolutely no rush at all to wiggle it out.

But a couple mornings ago, early in the morning, Ben came running down the stairs with his tooth in his hand! He said it just fell out when he woke up! (Yes, it was that loose at the end.) No pain, no blood, no trauma. He was most suprised by how tiny his tooth actually was!

Well, preparations for the arrival of the Tooth Fairy were taken up a notch as we prepared the tooth for its departure. We got it in a baggie and tucked safely away under his pillow, in just the right spot where no one would mess with it (the idea of someone messing with a dead tooth didn't seem like an unlikely situation to him at all.)

We did our part in the process, the rest was left up to this mysterious fairy who collects children's dead baby teeth. Now, I have never met this character, so I'm not sure, but my thoughts are that there might be one head Tooth Fairy, but many other fairies of various levels of experience working under her. We obviously got a newbie. I think this might have been her first time performing her job, in fact!

I'm just guessing here, but here is now I figure it went down: she forgot all about my son's first tooth (monumental of an event as it is) until the very last minute. Early in the morning, she woke in a panic, flew to her money stash, grabbed the money, then desperately tried not to wake an already stirring boy as she searched and searched under his pillow for his well-hidden tooth. I imagine her holding her breath as she does it so as to make as little noise as possible, already coming up with excuses and explanations in her head to explain to the little boy in case he does wake up. She probably cringed as she opened the crinkly bag, certain the noise was way too loud, then, ever so gently, replaced the tooth with money and slid the bag back under the pillow before she made her silent and hasty departure.

She accomplished her mission without detection, but just barely! This being her first time, I'll cut her some slack, but she better be a bit more professional and competent next time!