The Triumphant Return of Sparklebritches Glitterpants

Alternate title: there has been a sad lack of glitter in our lives recently.

Who is Sparklebritches Glitterpants? You might know her by her official name of 'The Tooth Fairy.' I bestowed this moniker on her lo these many years ago when in a fit of inspiration, I decided to sprinkle glitter swiped from my children's art set to make it more fun than just getting money for their teeth. I blame Pinkalicious and Pinterest for this. Anyway, the glitter gets EVERYWHERE (no kidding) but they love the idea of 'fairy dust' so I was hoisted upon my own petard. This is why my creativity needs to be confined to 1) baking and B) writing. But I digress.

Sparklebritches Glitterpants hasn't had much to do at the Lange household this past year. All quiet on the enameled front and all that. There was a bit of excitement in November when Noelle's tooth finally came out after more than a year but beyond that, not a glimmer to be found. But, it's a new year and what better way to welcome 2016 than with glitter?

We were celebrating Christmas with Dyl's mom at her house on New Year's Day, a quiet affair when I wandered into the family room where Noah was watching some TV (after the hella late night they had on New Year's Eve - which is a story unto itself - he could watch 'Paw Patrol' til his eyes crossed for he was still.) For some reason, I noticed his mouth and that something looked 'off.' He's always had widely spaced teeth but one space in particular seemed wider than usual. I asked him to open his mouth more and was greeted by the sight of a bloody gaping hole where his tooth used to be. Compelled by the power of the grape, (aka 3/4 a bottle of Shiraz) I kind of shouted at him 'where is your tooth?!' then followed up that brilliant piece of parenting by shoving a tissue into the hole to blot the blood. To the shock of everyone (me), he completely wigged out, crying and sobbing that it hurt. Which it didn't because he wasn't even aware of it until I came swooping in, screeching like an unhinged guardian of dentifrice.

Trying to comfort him while Dylan searched for his tooth, I patted his back and said I just wanted to be sure he hadn't swallowed it which, though the truth, was the absolutely wrong thing to say as it set off a fresh wave of sobbing, "I'm not going to be able to eat now!" to which I may or may not have unsuccessfully choked back laughter. Nothing like setting the parenting bar high the first day of the year. Long story short, the bleeding stopped, the tooth was found, and dinner was eaten.

This picture brought to you by a bottle of Shiraz

So how did a marginally loose tooth pop out? Well, he has a habit of  pulling on his socks...with his teeth. Shrewdly asking him, "Were you chewing on your socks before your tooth came out?", he admitted he was and like that, the mystery solved.

That would be the rest of the bottle; why do you ask?

Later at home, he admitted that he was very excited that the Tooth Fairy was going to be visiting him for the first time as he was jealous that Noelle had been the only one visited. No worries buddy, I got you covered. I've been waiting to give this to you for a long time.

But can we agree to maybe slow this growing up thing down just a little now? Sparklebritches Glitterpants needs another bottle.

SparkleBritches Fumblefingers

Yesterday Noelle lost her fifth tooth. Well, more accurately spun that bad boy around until it popped out with a hella lot of blood but yay! It was out and the danger of Snaggle Tooth Picture Day was sidestepped...this time. Dyl cleaned her up and I got her special tooth pillow out of the closet so we were ready. As the resident Tooth Fairy around these parts, I've got it covered; the only risk being that she'll wake up when I make the exchange. Other than that, we're good.

When she lost her first tooth last summer, I wanted to do something a little bit more than just money but not over the top (thanks Pinkalicious for setting THAT ridiculous bar) and so settled on sprinkling glitter from the window to the tooth pillow then up to her pillow before heading back to the window so it would seem like the tooth fairy was giving her a kiss or something. (Wow, typing that out makes it really creepy. Well done me.) I deliberately stayed away from any tooth fairy Pinterest boards because ain't nobody got time for that.

She LOVES it. She loves the glitter the 'tooth fairy' leaves even more than the coin (gold-plated $1 coins - special but not too grandiose.) Glitter, however, gets EVERYWHERE so I clearly didn't think this plan through enough. No turning back now; onward Ferb! This is also how our tooth fairy got her name, SparkleBritches Glitterpants because GLITTER. She usually sleeps without a nightlight so I got really good at navigating her room in the pitch black, dodging beanbag chairs and piles of books to get to the window side of her bed. I apparently like a challenge. Anyway, I've got a system and get in and out in under a minute. Until last night.

Recently she's begun sleeping with a nightlight so when Operation SparkleBritches Glitterpants was deemed a 'go', I smugly smugged that with a light, this would be easy. I'd break my record for swapping moolah for enamel and then could get into bed before the cat claimed my spot. Haaa. Ha. Oh, hubris.

I prepped for the mission by turning out all the lights before slowly opening the door. I froze for a moment to see if she stirred and briefly considered army crawling but wisely discarded that as I'm more klutzy crawling than walking. No movement so I moved confidently into the room and that's when I made my first mistake - I was on the wrong side of the bed (consistency is important y'all and it's only weird if it doesn't work.) (Spoiler alert: it didn't work.) I reached for the flap to the tooth pocket...and couldn't get it open. So I raised it a few more times before discovering that it was NOT the flap I was moving, it was the pocket itself. Once I figured that out, I got the flap open, deposited the loot...and couldn't find the tooth. I rummaged in the tiny pocket for what felt like forever, even going so far as to pick the whole pillow up which is when she started shifting. There I was, trapped in the blue glow of the nightlight, caught red-handed. Fortunately, the tooth fairy gods smiled on me (after enjoying a good chuckle at my expense no doubt) and she settled back to sleep. At this point it was clear that the tooth was not in the pocket and my fumbling around had managed to to knock it out somewhere on her bed.

Basically at that point I said 'fuck it, we'll distract her in the morning', dispensed the glitter and got the hell out of Dodge. Only thing left to do was concoct an elaborate tale of 'Mommy must have come up to bed just when the tooth fairy arrived and scared her so she forgot to take the tooth but no worries, we'll just mail it to her' in the event she noticed the tooth on her bed in the morning. Then Dyl found the tooth in her pile of stuffed animals this morning so really, this whole post that I almost killed the tooth fairy is kind of pointless.

The end.