I sure hope the Easter Bunny brings less drama to my house than the Tooth Fairy did last week. I’m becoming paranoid by trappings of these invisible, gift-bearing creatures and the lengths I go to to support their existence. How am I supposed to honour a parental code of secrecy when last week’s visit from the Tooth Fairy resulted in a marital spat and nearly exposed Carpenter and me for frauds?
That figment of the imagination flew into our lives and created a lot of fairy dust. For weeks, we’d been encouraging our son to wiggle a loose tooth, as the new tooth was growing in crooked. Think: dentist bill. We were so anxious we upped the value of the tooth in question. We promised our son a settlement in the amount of five whole dollars, payable by the Tooth Fairy for his tooth. Dummies.
The tooth fell out. Our boy was overjoyed. Graciously, he drafted a letter to the Tooth Fairy, confirming the cash settlement and notifying her that despite his request for more money, there would be no tooth exchange. He wanted to keep his tooth. Forever. If that wasn’t enough, he asked for one last thing. This is where things really began to unravel. He asked the Tooth Fairy for a self-portrait, so he could see what she looked like. He left a space on the paper for her sketch and a special pen. Hoo boy.
After the children’s bedtime, the Carpenter and I dove into our change banks to see if we could scrape together enough coins to make the five dollar bail for a tooth that we would now be keeping. We grumbled about childhood tales of a Tooth Fairy who only brought us a quarter, back when a quarter still bought a whole bag of chips. Nobody ever asked our parents to draw portraits, for goodness sakes. Geesh.
With two toonies and a loonie secured for the transaction, I headed off to bed. The Carpenter had the task of placing the coins beneath our son’s pillow. But minutes later, the Carpenter re-appeared with the note and the pen for the Tooth Fairy, threw it on the bed, and said, “You need to draw her portrait. I can’t do it.”
Me? “No way,” I said. “I can’t draw. You do it.”
“Uh-uh,” the Carpenter grunted. “I don’t draw fairies. I draw plans. You have to do it.”
“Oh no, I don’t. The child will be emotionally scarred by my stick-figure art. Tomorrow morning he’ll look in my eyes and know this was me. I’ll be a liar,” and I tossed the pen and paper to the end of the bed.
We had a stand-off. No, an art-off. The Carpenter stared at me and me at him. He was smiling. He knew there was no way imaginable that I could disappoint our son. He wouldn’t either, but he had the upper hand. He used my own Mommy guilt against me with just a subtle look. I lost. So there I sat, sketching a ragged looking Tooth Fairy. She was ugly, with big, frizzy hair, dark sunglasses, with a frumpy body, lopsided wings and carrying a bucket for teeth. If I were a child, that image would make me cry.
The next morning, my son ran down to the kitchen, laid the picture on the table, and said, “She’s funny looking. And look Mom, she used a different pen.” Note to self: curse the Carpenter.
If the Easter Bunny has any smart ideas for art projects, he’d better be packing a lot of chocolate.