Lainey lost her second tooth this weekend, its exit from her smile made with a clean snap, no blood, caught between her fingers rather than landing in a pile of broken shells this time. She was wiggling it, examining its position in the bathroom mirror, when I stepped into the shower; and by the time I was lathering my hair, it was out. Calmly holding the tooth between her fingers, she tapped on the shower door to show me.

“Just now?” I asked.

“Yep. Look.” She flashed an underbite to reveal the cavern, the lost tooth’s successor already pushed through and making its way to the front.

I congratulated her on her new smile and hyped up the tooth fairy’s arrival.

Spoiler alert and Tooth Fairy Rule #1: Don’t hype up the tooth fairy’s arrival if she’s not going to arrive.

This was our second chance to give the tooth fairy thing a good start, so you’d think we’d be on high alert to do it right. That said, fast forward to yesterday morning when Lainey woke up and announced, perplexed, that maybe the tooth fairy didn’t come because her head wasn’t on a pillow.

Seriously, only second tooth in and we’re already screwing up?

“Oh, I bet you’re right,” I agreed. “No worries, Lainey. We’ll make sure it’s under the pillow tonight and I’m sure she’ll come.”

This was all fine and dandy until an hour later, Brett came running in the kitchen frantically whispering, “We forgot about her tooth! I went ahead and put a dollar under the blanket and told her to go check again.”

“For real?” I asked. “I just told her the tooth fairy probably looked in the wrong place and would come back tonight.”

Rule #2: Cross-check bullshit stories between spouses before implementing recovery plan.

Following Lainey into our bedroom, we watched while she picked up the very obvious posed blanket to find a dollar, our cue to proceed with Operation Bullshit: “See! The tooth fairy did remember. The dollar was there all this time. You just didn’t see it.”

Rule #3:  Don’t blame your kid for your failure.

She stared at the dollar, her amazement/thrill/curiosity/excitement all buried in the cutest little smirk I ever did see.

I kissed the top of her head, in love with her innocence. “Now you have TWO tooth fairy dollars! Let’s go put it with your other one.”

Suddenly, Brett’s head snapped in surprise, a look of horror swallowing his face. “Nooooooooooooo!” he mouthed, his hands flailing above him like a referee.

I realized the horror. Oh my God. He TOOK THE FIRST TOOTH FAIRY DOLLAR FROM HER PIGGY BANK TO PAY FOR THE SECOND TOOTH. For the love of God, how come we never have cash in this house?

Rule #4: (you’d think this would be a given): Don’t steal from your kid.

Rule #5: Keep cash on hand.

At this point, there was nothing I could do but laugh.

“We suck at this,” I whispered to Brett before swooping in to distract Lainey from fetching the first dollar.

We recovered well, but I’m pretty sure we used up all our Get Out of Jail Free cards. She has to be on to us. We’re one mishap away from The Jig Is Up—from blowing all of it—Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the freaking Elf on a Shelf. We’re too laid back, we’re too forgetful, we’re too gung-ho-at-first-but-fizzle-out-later for this shit.

I retold my story to Heidi this morning.

“Dude, you have a lot to learn,” she said, “Let me give you a few more tips.”

By the way, her tooth fairy credentials: 14 teeth.

Heidi continued, “Don’t sprinkle glitter, don’t write a poem, don’t write a note. Just leave the dollar and walk away. If you don’t, they’ll expect it every time. Trust me. I’ve heard one too many times ‘How come there’s no glitter?! She didn’t leave a note!’”

“Oh this is good,” I said.

“And here’s another thing,” she continued, “Don’t fall prey to one of those stupidass sites where you pay $10 to upload a picture of your sleeping child so they can Photoshop a fairy on their shoulder.”

“Oh Heidi, you didn’t. $10?”

“Okay, it was $15. Don’t judge. Also, don’t let your kids see The Tooth Fairy with the Rock or you’ll have to answer all these %$#@ing questions. I mean, seriously, the Rock as the Tooth Fairy?”

“I guess this is a good time to admit something,” I jumped in.

“What’d you do?” She started laughing before I even told her.

“That last tooth? I overcompensated for the shell disaster. Hours after she found her dollar, I read something about tooth fairy footprints, and…”

“Kelle, stop,” Laughter.

“Heidi, I stamped a Barbie’s foot in an ink pad, stomped it all over paper and then dragged Lainey in to see it. It didn’t even look like a foot! Barbie doesn’t have any toes!”

“Lord.”

“She has a whole mouthful of teeth to go, how long can I keep this up?”

“You have three kids,” she said, “be prepared to burn out by Kid #2.”

“For real?”

“Hey, it happens.”

The crazy thing is, I was so excited for that first tooth. Years before even having kids, I thought about how we’d do the Tooth Fairy, how fun it would be to plan a kid’s birthday party, how I’d continue the Christmas traditions my parents did to make Santa as real as he could be even if I cursed ever starting that make-a-reindeer-hoof-stencil nonsense, and this was all before Pinterest. I played out these magical childhood scenarios in my head much like I took notes while student teaching—writing down all the cool classroom ideas I collected, storing project sketches, making promises to myself that when I taught the Boston Tea Party lesson? I’d build a ship in my classroom and let the kids act it out.

There was an article that went viral last week about how childhood is magical in itself, and we shouldn’t try to make it more magical. I laughed and shook my head with an, “Oh my God, so true!” but later felt a little voice, perhaps my own insecurity in wanting to defend our sometimes outlandish and yes, highly unnecessary, attempts to create magic. I mean, a North Pole party? Really? “Defend the magic!” the voice whispered—an ironic plea, considering our Tooth Fairy magic was a big fat flop days later. It’s just that, even though we mumble and complain about how ridiculously far we’ve gone, even though we set ourselves up for failure more times than not, even though it often seems too much (sometimes it is), even though we curse the mom who created the list of 101 Things to Do With Your Elf on a Shelf, sometimes trying to create magic is…well, magic. It was to me the night I stayed in my classroom wee hours of the night, rigging flaps of butcher paper to the ceiling to build a ship for our Boston Tea Party lesson—an overzealous teacher not yet fully poisoned by benchmark demands, standardized tests and people who thought that the Boston Tea Party was pretty entertaining in itself, so stop trying to make it more. Teachers don’t have time for this. Stop purposely adding stress to your job. You’re making us other teachers look bad. Kids are going to expect this. They’re losing their ability to independently find magic in books.

I get it, I get it. There’s a point there. But, you know what? I hope somewhere in the line of competent, benchmark-conscious teachers (“all good things, all good things,” as Olaf would say), my kids will have some overzealous ones too—ones who go beyond “Education is magical in itself” and maybe take a page from the student teaching notebook and build the damn ship. Take on the added stress. Song and dance it once in a while. If we’re creating magic from Pinterest pressure or to Facebook one-up or because we think our kid’s childhood has to have a dog-and-pony-show for happy memories, then yes—not good things, not good things. But don’t throw Peter Pan out with the bath water.

Maybe the “epic fails” like forgetting to put the dollar under the pillow or starting Elf on a Shelf and canning him three days later are exactly what balances all this out, toughens up our kids, allows us to create magic now and then without becoming one of “those parents.”

We’ll forget about teeth again in the future, I’m sure. We’ll complain about how late it is on Christmas Eve when we still have to sweep up the reindeer food. We’ll say, “Look at us, we’re ridiculous, what a joke” while we drop Easter Bunny poop all over the yard. But you know what? We’ll also admit that we like it (sssshhhhhh). That we’d do it again in a heartbeat. That while we curse the fluffy holidays and the stories of what other parents are doing, we might actually enjoy, even for just a moment, dipping our toes into magical childhood while we knock down chairs and dye shit green the night before St. Patrick’s Day because, “Oh My God! Look! The leprechauns came!”

Will our kids need therapy? It’s likely. But it’s likely without all these shenanigans, so what’s one more thing? Just think—the stories we’ll tell around the Thanksgiving table someday. One of them will be that one time when Dad stole your dollar to pay you for your tooth, and my, how we’ll howl and slap the table.

Long live the (messed-up, ridiculous, story-rendering, stop-with-this-nonsense) magic.

“Spot me, spot me, Mom,” she says, her legs awkwardly kicking into the sky, her hair spilling over prickly grass, her upside-down smile revealing that top row of baby teeth intact for just a little longer. I run over to help straighten her flailing legs and pull them together so that they line up perfectly with the rest of her body and point up toward the sky. Without even looking, I can feel her happiness and pride. The headstand is the newest of Things to Be Conquered–number #479 in the line-up of victories that have filled almost seven years of growing up–victories that I’ve spotted in some way or another along the way.

“Don’t let go,” she instructs, her smile close to crossing the line into a hearty giggle but quickly reigned back into concentration mode.
“I’m not going to let go,” I promise. “I’m not going to let go until you tell me it’s okay to let go.”

Over and over and over we practice. I offer a steady hand to lean against while she finds her balance, a mix of shaky elbows and pink cheeks from the head rush.

“Hold my feet, Mom,” she says for the eighteenth time. I hold her feet.

“Try resting your knees on your elbows,” I offer. “That’s how I learned. It will help you get your balance before you put your legs into the sky.”

“Okay, but don’t let go,” she says again.

“Lainey, I’m not going to let go until you tell me to,” I assure her again.

She’s determined. She throws her legs into the air again and again and again, always just a hair too reliant on my support to keep her from mastering an unassisted headstand. I stand beside her though, committed to just however many kicks it takes until she’s ready.

I watch as she eventually takes my advice, balancing her knees on her elbows, forming a tripod–a shaky one, but steady enough that she doesn’t call out for me to spot her. She can’t contain her laughter, completely satisfied with her ability to hold her own weight upside-down.

“See, I told you. You’re doing it,” I say. I wait for her invitation to spot her. I take my mark, ready to step in with steady hands to hold her legs. Any time, now. She’s going to need me.

She stretches the right leg up first, jerking it into place when it dances for just a moment to the left.

I’m ready to jump in. Spot you, right? Just say it, I’m here.

Her left leg leaves its position to join the right leg while her face grows redder and her smile seeps deeper into the milky skin of that face I love.

I’m here. Say you need me, and I’m here.

I wait to jump in and steady her legs, but she pulls them upright on her own. Her right toes touch her left toes for just a nanosecond, and those legs we’ve referred to as noodles and sticks and toothpicks are, for a moment, steel beams. High-rises. Strong and supportive.

It only lasted a second–that perfect aligned headstand she’s been dreaming of, toes pointed to the clouds–but it happened and I saw it.

Legs quickly fall out of place, tumbling down like dominoes–knees falling into elbows, elbows into shoulders, shoulders into neck, neck into somersault and giggles and silky blond hair that kisses a thousand blades of grass before it shoots back up into a victorious dismount.

She did it. She did it for only a second, but a second that exponentially grows into infinite measure because she did it alone. Without me.

I waited to spot all three of them this week.

Just say the word. I’m here. This is my job.

I watched from the sidelines, arms outstretched, on their mark, ready to swoop and scoop, align and assist.

..but those babies stretched out on their own. No “Spot me! Spot me, Mom!”

They knew I was there. Oh, I know they knew I was there. I’m kind of loud and obnoxious when it comes to “I’m right here, baby!”

But I sat on my hands and smiled, so proud of their independence, so reminded of the fact that we all need space to spread our wings.

When they did it? When they mastered #62 and #235 and #469 on their list of Things to Be Conquered, do you know what they did next? They turned their heads, looking for me, checking to see if I saw it. I saw her look to see my reaction when she nailed that headstand. I watched her run to me when I picked her up from preschool, waiting for my high five on the best day ever. I caught his grin when he let go of those hands and put that right foot forward.

Do you see me, Mom? I can do this on my own. You taught me how.

I see you, kids. Keep going. I’ll spot you when you need me. And when you don’t, I’ll clap and wave and maybe even pick up a book or two to catch up on some reading. But I’m always here.

And, hey.
When you forget how to do it? When you forget how to stand alone?
Come back to me. I’ll show you.

You got it from your mama.

Don’t you forget that.

*************

Tapping into some baby style-loving with contributions this week:

At BabyZone with some of our favorite shops: 10 Complete Hip Baby Looks for Under $50

…and over at e-How with tips on combining baby style fun with budgets: Kids and Clothes: How to Shop Without Breaking the Bank

*****
And if you haven’t seen this yet…we applaud Honey Maid for their #thisiswholesome campaign and the way they beautifully stood by their ads. LOVE WINS. So does brilliant creative marketing that sends positive messages. Meet me at the campfire…S’mores for all.

Happy Weekend!

Today was the last day of spring break. Though we didn’t really go anywhere out of the ordinary this past week, the notion of “last” still roused the same scarcity sensors that initiate swiping the last brownie and ordering a drink for last call.  Lap It Up Before It’s Gone seemed to whisper everywhere this morning, even though I’m smart enough to realize we can create these days whenever we want, and “before it’s gone” is an entirely overdramatic phrase regarding doing fun stuff with the kids on the last day of spring break. Nevertheless (how awesome is that word?—I mean, it’s three words in one.), Mercury’s not in retrograde until June which means life’s dramatic flair might need some kindling. So I’m going to go full throttle Suck the Marrow on this one: Spring Break, Spring Break, wherefore art thou, Spring Break?

I dedicated the day to complete enjoyment of the kids and our surroundings and called time of death on any and all work/to-do list tasks at 9 this morning which left the entire day to carpe’-ing the diem.  So we set out to do just that, planning a very rough outline that looked like Have Lunch Together, Drive Somewhere Fun. We packed a blanket in case our fun destination required sitting and a stroller in case our day extended into naps.

Lunch turned into park, park turned into beach, and beach eventually turned into pool at home.

Today was calm and redeeming–both the perfect end to spring break and the perfect beginning to a new week.

A new week sounds lovely because last week can be summed up as nothing less than “Aw, hell naw”–the low point reflected in that scene at the local bakery where I met my cousins from Michigan for what was supposed to be a nice lunch and ended up being a 20-minute trailer for that imaginary documentary, The Trenches of Parenthood. The scene ended with me asking, “Can you help me get to the car?” because I honestly couldn’t manage my kids by myself. Crying jags, flailing limbs, one who insisted on wearing a beach blanket as a cape, macaroni and cheese that one wanted but then didn’t want but then wanted again but then didn’t want, and a baby who couldn’t accept that climbing on booth tables was uncouth. We were the restaurant spectacles, and everyone knew it.

But it’s over as quick as it begins. And for every “God, I’m going to lose it today” conversations I have with my sister, there’s ten more stories that follow–Did I tell you what Nella said today? Dash just fell asleep on my chest. Lainey wrote another poem today. One’s my favorite age. Four’s my favorite age. Six’s my favorite age. 

Throughout our adventures today, we happened to witness a few unfortunate mishaps–a fender bender, a minivan door that accidentally opened and spilled belongings all over a parking lot, and a girl on the beach that took a hit to the face with a volleyball. I didn’t realize Lainey was keeping track until after the volleyball incident. “Mom, we keep seeing bad things happen,” she noted. “We saw three. I wonder what the next one will be.”

My, how easy it is for all of us to give notice to the bad things–to add them up, to give them thought, to wait for them to happen and fear their arrival.

“Bad things happen every day for all of us,” I told her, “but good things happen too. Instead of waiting to see what the next bad thing will be, how about we start looking for good things that happen, or better yet–we could make something good happen.”

“Like you buy me something?” she asked.

Okay, that wasn’t what I was thinking.

Lainey tripped and fell later in the afternoon, scraping her knees and alerting our entire county of her tragedy in the process. I waited for her to make note of that fourth bad thing, but she never did. We had shells to categorize and sandy shoes to shake out, and Nella said “Elsa butt” which, according to Lainey, was the funniest thing that happened this year, ever.

Bad things happen.
Good things happen.

Some photos of the latter…

Outside picnic table allows for reasonable climbing

When Grandma takes kids to Target…mermaid Barbie follows.

Braid hair

Good night.