The Tooth Fairy Is Alive, And He Is Me

I'll admit it: I still want to believe in Santa Claus. And Bigfoot. And the Loch Ness Monster. And ghosts -- yes, ghosts. And I really hope that aliens do visit the planet now and then, though I'd prefer they stop it with the kidnapping and anal probing. I could do without the Easter Bunny, because I have enough damn rabbits in my back yard and I certainly don't want any that break into my house and defecate the place with "Easter eggs."

I could also do without the tooth fairy, who creeps me out. While he's not the only myth we have that is guilty of breaking and entering, he is the only one that actually steals something in the process. Worse, the creep sneaks into kids' bedrooms while they're sleeping. Anybody else who did that would get a baseball bat upside the head from yours truly, and then a quick trip to prison.

Nevertheless, I do my best to keep all of these myths alive in my eldest son's head, though I'm thinking of telling him that a fox got the Easter bunny because I hate that thing and, frankly, it would be best if that damn rabbit succumb to the laws of nature (seriously, an egg-laying bunny? What poppy-chewing Roman monk came up with that idea as a way to spread Christianity?)

I have, however, found it increasingly difficult to keep up this ruse -- not just because he's aging and is increasingly exposed to older kids who are long past the myth belief stage of childhood. The biggest threat is from yours truly. After Christmas, after "Santa" gave my son a Nintendo DS, I decided to fill my boy's head with guilt by informing him that I never got such nice gifts as a kid because I was poor. Oops. "Why wouldn't Santa give you nice gifts because you were poor, Daddy?" I quickly changed the subject. Thankfully, The Boy has a minimal attention span.

Last night, The Boy lost his second tooth. Tooth loss is, of course, a joyous occasion for young ones because a detached tooth is a ticket to wealth. All he needs is to stick it under his pillow and in the morning it has turned into cold, hard cash thanks to the aforementioned tooth thief. In my youth I was lucky to get a quarter. My eldest got $5 when he lost his first tooth while we visited my wife's sister over Thanksgiving, and I noted in the morning that the Tooth Fairy was both "generous" and "probably out of 1s."

So when he lost the second tooth we quickly said that kids usually don't get as much for second teeth as they do first teeth, lowering his expectations -- which was good, because I only had a dollar and some change (I can guess that future Tooth Fairies will just leave debit cards). He went to bed, and put the tooth under his pillow and quickly went to sleep. Being the household "Tooth Fairy" I was responsible for the cash-for-tooth exchange. And I waited for a while -- how long I didn't check -- and then went into his room.

I reached under his pillow. And then I heard this: "Dad, what are you doing?"

Crap.

"Uh ... just checking on you, buddy." Fortunately, I did not have the tooth in hand. So I just kissed him on the forehead, said good night, and left his room like a bat out of hell. When I went in there a second time I practically took his pulse to ensure that he was asleep before making the exchange.

Logically, I could just let this myth die, because it will die soon enough, along with Santa and all that, and it's a creepy myth, anyway. It would also save me a few bucks. But I'm guessing that he'd simply expect cash for his teeth in the future, and just giving him cash when he loses a tooth seems terribly boring. Indeed, the more I think of it, the sadder it would seem to see my son realize that all these myths were little more than stupid stories parents made up to either get their kids to behave (Santa), get them to go to bed early (Santa, Tooth Fairy) and get them to eat horrible, hard-boiled eggs scattered all over the back yard (That stupid Easter Bunny).

So I was relieved in the morning when my son showed no ill-effects from my faux pas. He apparently got up in the middle of the night and turned every single light on in his excitement over having two whole dollars (this was according to my wife, who gets up more easily at kid loudness than I do; I sleep like a rock and didn't hear this, Thank God). And today, he dragged us to Target so he could get something with his money, and there he found out that a lost tooth just doesn't buy you much these days.

Ignore Mom Warnings At Your Own Risk

We went to an indoor water park yesterday, because we live in Minnesota and are willing to pay big bucks to spend a day denying winter's existence. We packed the kids up early in the morning, and stayed for several hours. I spent many of them trying to convince The Boy that he'd love the water slide. He finally relented, and then I spent the rest of the time trying to keep him from going so much because he was wearing me out.

The Sequel was his own handful. He viewed the entire complex as his own personal drinking fountain. At least, that's what he did when he wasn't trying to dive in headfirst into the deep end. By the end of the day we parents voted him Most Likely Sibling To Break A Bone.

But a good time was had by all and, by late afternoon we were all ready to go home. The Sequel quickly fell asleep in the van. He then took a two-hour nap. And when he woke up, he began screaming.

This is not an uncommon occurrence. The phrase "sleep like a baby" is terribly misused, and should only be reserved for descriptions of nights when you frequently wake up yelling your head off. Alas, after six years of parenting we are quite used to a kid waking up screaming, and to us it's almost like white noise. Almost.

This episode was unusual, however, in that it didn't stop, and that the screaming was loud enough to wake the dead (though I'm thankful that we don't live near a cemetery, for then that screaming episode would have ignited the zombie apocalypse, and I'm not entirely ready for that yet).

The Sequel just kept screaming. And screaming. Sometimes he stuck his tongue out. Sometimes he coughed. White noise, this was not. And so we decided to do something dreadful: call the doctor.

We have had a few occasions in which we've called the doctor because of one of our children. In every single case, it went just like this following episode, which is based on a very true story:

US (panicking): OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD! The Boy's head has blown up like a balloon! He looks like a bad Jay Leno sketch! What should we do??!!??

NURSE (yawning): Uh. Nothing. He's fine. Calm down, you over-reactive parents.

As 100 percent of our calls to the pediatrician were more or less blown off, we've learned that our kids can handle a lot more than we think they can. So it took an awful lot of really ugly screaming to get us to call the doctor in this case. And we did, fully prepared to hear that, "It's just gas, you morons." But that's not what we heard.

"It sounds like something bad has happened to him. You should bring him to the ER."

Thus, we spent our evening in the emergency room at Children's Hospital. The Sequel screamed the entire drive to the hospital, then screamed some more when we got to the waiting room. He seemed to tire himself out, but he renewed his screaming episode with vigor when the nurse tried to take his temperature.

When we got into the room, we were visited by a succession of hospital employees, none of whom had his or her medical degree, in an effort by the hospital to drive up the ultimate cost of the bill. We waited, for nearly two hours, during which The Boy got to watch old Ren & Stimpy cartoons, while The Sequel was passed from parent to parent like a hot, screaming potato. He seemed to tire out, but screamed now and then, especially when another nurse again tried to take his temperature, this time rectally.

(That's fully expected: I scream, too, whenever somebody tries to take my butt's temperature.)

Finally, after two and a half hours in the emergency room, the doctor showed up. He took one look at The Sequel, squeezed his leg, and then I heard this:

A giggle.

A giggle? The doctor did it again, and The Sequel giggled louder. By the end of the 15-minute visit with the doctor my youngest kid was running around the room and bouncing on the bed. "I've never healed anyone that fast," the doctor said.

My reaction on the outside was one of relief. But inside, I was like this: WHAT???!! YOU'RE NOT SICK!???? AFTER ALL OF THAT YOU ARE WELL ENOUGH TO GIGGLE AT THE MERE SQUEEZING OF YOUR LEG?? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU, KID?!!??

Sure, I was relieved that the kid was fine, but annoyed as hell that he needed an emergency room visit to get better. In the end, we spent several hundred dollars so The Boy could watch cartoons and so The Sequel could get tickled by a nice pediatric ER doctor, who told us ... it's probably just gas. Or maybe he cramped up following the trip to the water park.

And then, as we went home, we realized that we had eaten lunch at the park, and then went swimming straight afterward, meaning my wife's failure to shout to our kids, "Don't go swimming for another hour!" eventually doomed us to an evening in the ER. The kids will now get a full dose of "No running with scissors!" And "if you keep making that face it'll stick like that!" Or "Don't sit too close to the TV or you'll go blind." Because, apparently, it's all true.