The dilemma of the tooth fairy

Lately the tooth fairy has been pretty lazy. Or - as we have discovered through various apology letters - there have been a myriad of extenuating circumstances preventing her from making her usual tooth/surprise exchanges in a timely manner. Sometimes it takes her several days or even a week to show up! We thought perhaps it was because we had moved and she didn't know where we were living. We also decided that it might be because she was unable to find the tooth because it had slid onto the floor during the night.

Finally, a friend informed us that we must have moved into a different "tooth fairy service area" (apparently there are many tooth fairies and each one is assigned to a specific "tooth zone") and this could be the cause of the delay. Like when you get a new newspaper delivery person and they are trying to learn the new route?!? Sometimes the transition takes a few days.

That made sense! Think about it - how could one little fairy fly all over the world collecting teeth each night? There just isn't enough time, and she couldn't carry all of those teeth by herself anyway. She doesn't have reindeer or a sleigh like Santa! (This also explains the discrepancies between the money and gifts left for teeth at different children's houses. Each tooth fairy can determine the type of reward left in exchange for the teeth they collect.)

Anyway, this explanation pacified Sammy for a little while, but after losing four teeth in a month (and the tooth fairy still being rather confused and MIA many nights in a row) Sammy was getting understandably frustrated.

This morning, she came into our bedroom and was pretty upset. She said that the tooth fairy had not left her a surprise (again). And worse yet - she had taken her tooth! It was definitely a theft in her mind. I dutifully got up and went to help her look for the tooth (with a dollar bill tucked into my back pocket...I know, a little suspicious, right?) We crawled all over looking under and around the bed for a sign of either the tooth or a surprise. Finally, I "discovered" a dollar bill laying behind the bed by the wall.

The tooth fairy was cleared of all burglary charges in my mind. Sammy, however, was not so sure. She picked up the dollar bill, opened it up and examined it carefully. I was already on my way out of the room at this point (as the mystery had been solved) when Sammy stopped me and asked, "Is this a fake?" Trying not to laugh, I carefully inspected the money. "No, it's really a dollar," I told her. "Well, it looks like a fake to me!" Sammy muttered as she put the dollar into her little purse.

Sammy says the silliest things sometimes. And as she gets older, her vocabulary gets bigger and her comments seem more and more hilarious! Honestly, half of what she says wouldn't be nearly as funny if she actually meant to make us laugh. But she is usually so serious when making her statements. It's just that her perspective on particular situations is often very unique...

And quite entertaining!