Innocence

My daughter came downstairs for breakfast this morning, dressed and looking presentable, which is not always the case, may I add. She runs to the beat of her own drummer when it comes to clothes. She sat down at the kitchen table and didn't say a word. She had a little pillow in her hand and her fingers stroked it and poked into its little pocket as she watched me with big eyes as I prepared the school lunches for the day.

Oh F*%$. I suck.

You see, the pillow was her tooth fairy pillow and the tooth fairy forgot to come. Emma lost one of her bottom eye teeth last night. Her fang tooth, she called it. I didn't even know she had a loose tooth. She may have told me weeks ago that it was loose but it seems my kids take months to lose teeth. She told me, likely, and then I forgot until she brought it up again after biting into pizza in the car on the way home from RONA last evening. Then she spent the next hour working and working on it until it came out.

Having a tremendously busy day yesterday that had me running around from the moment I got up until the moment of bed time between a school pick up, a bike pick up, patio stone pick up, helping with the patio building and running off to the first swimming session of the fall, the tooth loss was just one more thing. I even was concerned that I was going to forget before I actually forgot. My mind was tired, my body was tired and this is my child who is never tired enough. I can't put her to bed and expect her to be asleep in 10 minutes so I can do my secret tooth fairy duty. With her, there is no point in sneaking up there until she's been in bed for at least 2 hours. Last night she was in bed by 9, I was in bed reading by 9:30 and asleep shortly after 10.

Me:  I guess the tooth fairy forgot to come last night eh?

Her: Yeah.

Me: Why do you think that is?

I'm hoping I don't have to tell her. I'm hoping at this point that she will say to me, "It's because you are the tooth fairy Mom. Duhh... Everyone knows that. I'm in grade 4 now. Geez." I can tell by her eyes that the gig is up or at the very least that her doubt over of the existence of a "tooth fairy" has now been solidly confirmed.

Her: I don't know.

Me: So why do you think she didn't come.

Her: I don't know. I was sleeping last night. I was asleep.

Uh oh. She's thinking she's done something naughty and didn't deserve to have the tooth fairy come.

Me: Well maybe the tooth fairy was tired too and she fell asleep.

Her: Yeah.

Me: Do you want to keep the tooth?

Her: Yeah.

I look for my wallet and quietly open the zipper and find (thankfully, I'm not one for carrying cash), a Twonie. I plunk it on the table in front of her.

Me: Don't tell your brother.

Her: OK. I won't. He's still in bed. He won't hear us having this conversation.

And I know she doesn't tell him because about 20 minutes later she's being a snarky 9 year old again (where ever does she learn these behaviours from?) and I threaten to charge her a twonie for her rudeness. He he says: That's not your Twonie, the tooth fairy gave her that twonie.

So down goes the tooth fairy and it is only a matter of time before the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus suffer the same fate. Chances are she already knows about that too. Kids are far less naive today. I hung on to the fantasy of Santa Claus till I was about 12, which means that I was still fantasizing about Santa around the same time I started fantasizing about boys.

But my daughter amazes me. She has since pretty much birth. She wasn't interested in walking or standing so she scooted herself around on her bum till she was 20 months old. She could copycat big words like Constantinople at barely 13 months old. It was almost embarrassing to go into stores with her because she would say hello to every store clerk and say: Hi, my name is Emma and this is my Mommy Kim. She could barely walk when she was doing that and she was bald and looked more babyish than she was. Somehow she managed to fool us until she was 6 years old about the fact that she has no hearing in one of her ears. In all fairness, this was normal for her. It's been that way, as far as we can tell, since birth. It wouldn't have occurred to her that she was "different" from everyone else. She is wise and she is insightful. Old Soul. And she is sneaky and she is manipulative. She takes news of change in her world with calm curiosity. She's going to be a difficult teen and one interesting adult and I'm glad I get to raise her.