For some reason tonight as I put my Marshal to bed we got on the topic of losing teeth. One of our church friends lost a tooth and we started talking about the tooth fairy. I'm pretty sure I brought it up. Oops.
So as I proceed to answer his Tooth Fairy questions I start feeling really bad. I was already feeling bad about telling the "stories" about Santa Claus for Christmas.
He asked me what kind of shoes the tooth fairy wore. Girl or boy? Does he use magic fairy sprinkle to disappear? Will I see him if I wake up? Where do all the teeth go?
Oy.
Finally I said, "Honey, can I tell you a secret? The tooth fairy is pretend."
He looked at me like I'd told him he could eat ice cream for dinner. Eyes wide open and a gleeful grin on his face.
Well at least he wasn't crying.
He took it really well, which shouldn't surprise me. I proceeded to tell him that mommy and daddy are the ones who bring money to put under the pillow. And that my mommy did it for me when I lost my teeth.
And I have now proceeded to ruin his childhood. I don't know why I felt so guilty about letting him go on thinking the tooth fairy was real. I hate lying to him. But now I feel bad about taking away something as innocent as the tooth fairy. . . I did tell him not to tell other kids because they might still think he's real (I don't know why but the tooth fairy is a guy in my head).
Next up... the Easter Bunny.
He'll be just fine. We told our son from an early age that Santa was a game people played. And I got totally busted on tooth fairy duty one night. We still played the game, but he knew that his parents wouldn't lie to him. We didn't want to risk him lumping the important things like Jesus in with the make believe, but we wanted him to play the game and enjoy the fantasy part too.
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