Oops! A Little Mishap

Ugh, this pic of Toby! I DIE!!!

My daughter at eight told me on the evening of Easter that her cousin, Jason had just revealed I was the Easter Bunny and therefore, her dad must be Santa Claus (as if Daddy had spent months shopping and hiding and then wrapping gifts at 2:00 AM Christmas Eve)! I took a deep breath and came up with the wisest thing I’ve ever said, “It’s more fun to believe.” She’ll be 50 years old in September and we’ve just left it at that. And it is.

When I was just 8 years old, I lost a tooth, I put it under my pillow, I left “the tooth fairy” (AKA my parents) a note, and even a cute little tooth bag. The next morning I woke up, looked under my pillow, and the tooth, the note, and the bag were still there, I was a really sensitive child back then. I remember I sat for about an hour in bed, crying. My mom came in to “wake me up” I swear she reached around my pillow and took the tooth while she talked to me, thinking I would not notice When she walkeded out, I looked under my pillow, and sure enough the tooth was gone! But the note and bag were still there, I never got more then a dollar for a tooth, and later that day, I sat with mom on her rocking chair, I attempted to confront her about it I said “Mom, I didn’t know YOU were the tooth fairy” she just looked at me and said “What are you talking about?” I still haven’t gotten the truth out of her yet, I’m still only twelve!

We have friends who forgot two nights in a row! ;)

I liked unusual currency as a kid so the tooth fairy would bring me a $2 bill or a bicentennial quarter – that sort of thing. I was cleaning out my childhood room and realized that there were only a few coins in an envelope I had clearly labeled as from the tooth fairy. My mom then had to fess up that she recycled the same few coins or currency … I never noticed.

TOO MANY TIMES! I have told my girls that the tooth fairy’s flying regulations don’t allow her into rooms with operating fans. I’m a pediatric dentist, so I let kids in my office who are getting a tooth pulled know that the tooth fairy gives more money for teeth pulled by a dentist. The parents always look quite pleased with me!

I wish I had the time to go through all the comments to see if I’m repeating someone, but has anyone listened to the episode of This American Life with the adult who tells the story about what happened when she found out her friends’ dad was the tooth fairy? It’s right here in the prologue, and so funny that I have admittedly pretended the storyteller was an acquaintance of mine as a guaranteed way to get laughs in a group. LISTEN! https://www.thisamericanlife.org/188/kid-logic/prologue

Never full-on forgot. Woke up at 3am in a panic a few times, and once at about 6am. Finding cash was often a challenge, but the biggest mountain of all was THE NOTES. My daughter liked to write notes to the tooth fairy (and Santa, and the Easter Bunny), so the tooth fairy had to respond. On tissue paper. In very tiny little writing with a very sharp pencil. The sleep-deprived tooth fairy did her best.

I am the worst tooth fairy ever. I always forget. My best tooth fairy moment though: My mom sends my kids dollars in the mail occasionally and writes their name on each bill. I will usually put this money in my purse until we put it away or they spend it. Yep, these dollars (WITH HER SIBLINGS NAMES ON THEM) ended up under my oldest daughter’s pillow one night.

Luckily we only leave a gift for the first tooth….so it is a bigger event and usualy you get something that is more expensive like a gold necklace…but the fairy is never expected to leave money or to remember all your teeth :-) usualy by the 4th tooth the child is already 6 or so and their friends have already told them that it is from the parents and that there are no fairies :-(

I’m only on the 6th tooth and haven’t forgotten yet but our tooth fairy has run into a different dilemma several times – NO cash!!! We routinely borrow money from my son’s piggy bank for the tooth fairy then have to replace it on the sly after a run to the bank a day or two later. :)

I was great at remembering to put the money under my son’s pillow until he lost his 5th tooth. When this tooth fell out he asked me how the tooth fairy can be real since fairies aren’t real. The conversation snowballed from there with question after question and confession after confession about Santa, the Easter bunny, Dinovember etc. It was a sad day but my son was pretty accepting. We agreed to proceed as per normal (“if you don’t believe then you don’t recieve”) but the thrill of losing a tooth was lost and he forgot to put the tooth under his pillow. By the time he remembered to do it, the pressure and occassion had gone out of the whole thing so then I forgot to pay! It eventually took us about two weeks to sort our selves out by which time he had lost another tooth!

I have definitely forgotten! I used a similar excuse as you and felt like such a failure. But the most recent time my son lost a tooth (his 7th, he’s almost 8 as well) we both forgot to put it under his pillow. It was a week later that I remembered and said “Charlie! We never put your tooth under your pillow!!” We laughed and laughed that we both forgot. He was worried that the tooth fairy wouldn’t come since it was a week later but I told him that she knows we sometimes forget too :)

When I was a kid I went looking in my mom’s jewelry box and found all of my teeth that I had lost. I was mortified and asked my mom why she had my teeth. She told me that moms can’t part with them so after the tooth fairy takes them she gives them to the moms to save forever <3 PS- That was some quick thinking, mom! :)

Yes, we have forgotten!!! We use the gold $1 Sacagawea coins. They are “special” because they are gold. One night it was late when I remembered, and I couldn’t find any coins. Fortunately I remembered that the car wash in town sometimes dispensed them out when using the change machines for the vacuums, my husband ran out and as luck would have it, we got a coin. We now keep a roll up in the closet.

omg this happened to me! except my kid woke up at 5am in tears and we convinced him that it was still nighttime and he had to go back to sleep because there was still time. phew! now we send emails to ourselves and set timers on our phones as soon as a tooth falls out. ?

We have ten children and yes, many times the tooth fairy left an apologetic note the next evening. On one occasion when I almost forgot, I realized I had no change. I asked my husband if he had a dollar in his wallet. He handed me the bill and I tiptoed into the room and slipped it under the pillow. The next morning our son came down with a smile from ear to ear. The tooth fairy had left him a 20 dollar bill! I calmly announced that the tooth fairy must really love him and then rolled my eyes at my husband. Needless to say, his other siblings were not happy.

When I was a kid I asked the tooth fairy to draw a picture of what she looked like. I was thinking of the blue fairy in Pinocchio, with beautiful wings and long hair.
When I woke up the next morning, I checked my pillow and found a drawing from my tooth fairy! It was of a lumberjack with a big ax and a burly beard. I thought it was so weird that everyone else had cute fairies, and I had a lumberjack for a tooth fairy.

We have five kids, so we forget a little too frequently. Once, when one of the kids was particularly disappointed, we arranged for one of my husband’s friends to call from England and say that he was the tooth fairy and that he was away on vacation but would be back soon. My daughter kept saying, “How can it be that the tooth fairy is a MAN?!”

Forgot. Every. Time. I started implementing a new rule; you had to yell “hey Tooth fairy, I’m putting a tooth out!” before bed to foil those ones who hid the tooth in secret. I finally resorted to saying the Tooth fairy is sometimes too tired to fly upstairs so let’s leave in on the kitchen counter for her. Yeah, she still forgot……signed, Mother of Triplets.

One of my favorite tooth fairy stories is from my friend Sarah. One of her kids lost a tooth on a family vacation at a cottage with a bunch of cousins and extended family. When she slipped in to leave the $ under her son’s pillow, in a room with about 8 kids sleeping, from the dark she heard one of the cousin’s say, “I saw what you did Aunt Sarah!!” LOL

Once when I was a kid the tooth fairy forgot to come. The next morning under my pillows had a printed out email from her apologizing. The email said that the tooth notification system had gone down so she didn’t know until the next day! So, I got an email and my dollar!

Hahah! I’m an only child and my parents forgot almost every time! I still believed every excuse they made for that disorganized fairy…

In Germany in the last decade or so it has become a thing for some families to have the “Schnuller-Fee” come. That means “pacifier-fairy”. If a kid feels ready to chuck the pacifier, they leave it under the pillow or tie it to the bed and it will be gone in the morning. The Schnuller-Fee will have left a little gift by the bed. In our family it is usually a little book or a litte trinket or toy figure, nothing too expensive.

One time when I lost a tooth, we were on a two week road trip in an RV and my parents forgot (who can blame them with 3 kids on the go!). The next night, my little sister felt so sorry for me that she took one of her own dollars and snuck up to my cot to slip it under my pillow…only to find that the “tooth fairy” had beat her to it. She could hardly wait to tell us all the next morning that the tooth fairy was real, ha!

This literally JUST happened to me (well, to my daughter). I heard her little feet stomping out of bed and I bolted up and said “Oh sh*t I forgot to be the tooth fairy!”
She came in holding her little baggie with the tooth and gave me the saddest face.
The funniest thing is that she knows it’s me. She’ll say knowingly “I wonder what YOU’LL bring me tonight!” and then whisper “don’t worry, I won’t spoil the secret for my brother”. This time I just gave her a hug and said “Listen, the tooth fairy sometimes gets held up on Sundays, but she pays interest. Plus, I heard she has a lot going on and is starting a new job. Please forgive her.” She did!