Tuesday, November 15, 2005

When They Ask Me What Sex Is, I Hope To Be In A Movie Theater

Kiyomi lost another tooth at school yesterday. Either that or the lure of the cash monies left under her pillow by the Tooth Fairy is leading her to pull them out herself, I'm not sure. For all I know, she could be yanking out her permanent teeth and I wouldn't even know, since staring into her cavernous maw is not something I do very often. Let's just say that if you see her, toothless, gumming a piece of pizza and her Hello Kitty purse is stuffed with suspicious amounts of cash you'll figure it out.

In anticipation of the Tooth Fairy's arrival last night she wrapped her tooth in a piece of Kleenex and put it in her Tooth Fairy pillow (after removing it from yet another adorable mini treasure chest bestowed upon her by our lovely school nurses.) Then she started her musings aloud about the forthcoming bounty: "I wonder how much I'll get? Three dollars? Four dollars? Five dollars? How much do I need to get a Nintendo SP? I wonder if I'll see her tonight? What time does she usually leave the money? Why does she always leave dollar bills and never coins? MOMMY, ARE YOU THE TOOTH FAIRY?

This last question stopped me in my tracks. My hand froze above the bowl of Cheetos and my half-caf-dry-cappuccino began to grow cold as the weight of her question hung in the air and time stood very, very still. "Uhhhh, now, the deal with the Tooth Fairy is the same as with Santa, and remember what we told you about him. As long as YOU BELIEVE, THEY EXIST." This priceless gem of an explanation seemed to get us through last year's Santa inquest so I figured it would do the trick now. Wrong.

"Well, I KIND of think you're the tooth fairy. And, you wouldn't LIE to me, would you?"

I would like to say that I came clean and taught my child a valuable lesson that day about truth, honor and the crass commercialism that is the Tooth Fairy. I would like to say that my honesty in this situation led to a deep meaningful dialogue between us that opened the door to a richer, fuller mother-daughter relationship, one not built on the illicit trading of teeth for cash. But, uh, no.

I sat there, the wheels in my small rodent brain spinning wildly out of control as I struggled to come up with an appropriate answer to save my pathetic, lying ass. Then, at that precise moment a particular song came on the radio, one that is sung by a boy-singer that the girls particularly dislike and causes them to squeal in disgust and begin chanting a variation of his name that they made up and are particularly proud of. And so the day was saved, and my parental integrity left shockingly intact by the cries of:

Jesse McFARTNEY! Jesse McFARTNEY! Jesse McFARTNEY!

Thank you, thank you, Radio Disney.

Archive File: Offspring

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5 comments:

  1. My experience as a mother wants to tell you, once your
    "babies" start questioning the "Tooth Fairy" and
    "Santy-Claus", the SEX talk is just moments away.
    One day they're playing with Barbie and the next they
    are wondering why Barbie has such HUGE Boobs and
    more importantly, "When am I getting some of those" and by-the-way, what exactly are they for, ar uh, beside feeding the baby??!!

    Oh Yeah...itsa comin' and there ain't nuthin' you can
    do but..LIE! No, tell em that glorious story of Daddy loves Mommy, Mommy loves Daddy and so on and so
    on, but one day when they see the neighbors dogs
    "doin-it", they're going to put it all together and figure it out. Then they're going to ask you again, just to see If
    you'll tell them the REAL deal.

    Once you get your story down, you might want to hide a video camera so you can capture their expressions when
    you break it down. In retrospect, It would be fun to have
    my kids reaction on tape and they can take a look at it in the future. Making memories. Good Times, Good Times.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can't believe you've made it this long...in our house the sex discussion came WAY before the unveiling of the clumsy toothfairy who plum forgot about the evening payoff and tried to fumble a dollar under Tessa's pillow
    while she was awake the morning after, not even bothering to take the crown jewel in the transaction...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Stop trying to scare me.

    This is why they will be going to visit "Auntie Maggie" in the very near future.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey, is my kid and your kid running a tooth fairy scam?

    But instead, my hormones made me write a post that made me cry while I wrote it. Damn you Hormones!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. i loved what one five year old blurted out to me one day (i babysat him for a year). He just said one day, "Sex is when a man pulls on a woman's nipples." I just let him think that, and i think he will be happy with that for a while.

    ReplyDelete

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