We always hope to do our best to protect our children from heartache. So, the other morning when my son came sulking into my bedroom at 6:30 a.m. with legitimate tears rolling down his face, it killed me to know that I had caused it.
When I saw his saddened face, I immediately embraced him and exclaimed, “What’s wrong?!” He held up a clear Ziploc baggie and in the inside corner, I saw the tooth he had lost the day before. He spoke through his sobs, “The tooth fairy didn’t come”.
I let out a gasp—which my son interpreted as me wondering what must have happened that the tooth fairy didn’t visit—but to me of course, it was overcoming the immediate guilt that the tooth fairy had simply forgot. I thought quickly and spoke even quicker, “Did we not leave the front porch light on? Does the tooth fairy not work on Sundays? Should we have put a sign on the door that read, ‘Rocco’s room’”?
I saw my son’s tears begin to ease as he realized these might be the actual solutions to the problem. I assured him we would address all of these possibilities the following night, then the tooth fairy would certainly visit!
And with that, I grabbed my phone and set a reminder for 9:00 p.m. that evening that simply read, “Tooth fairy”.