"You know what, Mom? Your granddaughter is turning out to be quite a cynic," said my daughter recently.
"Her friend, Brady told her that the tooth fairy had left him some money and KC told him it was probably his mom. Brady said absolutely not because the tooth fairy even left him a note. What do you think your skeptical granddaughter said?"
I told her I didn't know.
"She said she wanted to see the note which Brady refused." answered Tiffany.
Good grief! What was 5 year old KC going to do? Check the note paper for fingerprints?
Well..... today, after KC had gone to bed, Tiffany Skyped us. Art answered the ring and I heard Tif say, "Dad, is Mom around?"
When I popped over to the computer monitor, there was my daughter's pretty face with her lips firmly pressed together with one eyebrow raised.
"Mom, Ed (my son-in-law) and I now know why KC doesn't believe in the tooth fairy. She told Ed this evening that you had all of Jon's and my baby teeth!"
Ooooooops! Mea culpa! It's true. Yikes! Oh my gosh! This spring, I'd been showing KC my costume teacher necklaces and kid friendly earrings when we came across the little pouches that contained Tif and Jon's baby teeth. I just hadn't been able to throw them away. Anyway, I showed them to her and told her she'd be losing her teeth someday too.
I totally forgot about the tooth fairy. (For those of my wonderful readers from other countries, children in the U.S. are supposed to leave their baby tooth under their pillow at night after they fall out. While they are sleeping, the tooth fairy is supposed to come and take the tooth away leaving some money to pay for the tooth that she takes away to Tooth Fairy Land.)
I guess KC did not forget what I showed her earlier in the year. She put two and two together and got Grandma the Tooth Fairy.
Remind me not to talk about Easter bunnies or elves or Santa Claus or whatever else. Sigh........
I told her I didn't know.
"She said she wanted to see the note which Brady refused." answered Tiffany.
Good grief! What was 5 year old KC going to do? Check the note paper for fingerprints?
Well..... today, after KC had gone to bed, Tiffany Skyped us. Art answered the ring and I heard Tif say, "Dad, is Mom around?"
When I popped over to the computer monitor, there was my daughter's pretty face with her lips firmly pressed together with one eyebrow raised.
"Mom, Ed (my son-in-law) and I now know why KC doesn't believe in the tooth fairy. She told Ed this evening that you had all of Jon's and my baby teeth!"
Ooooooops! Mea culpa! It's true. Yikes! Oh my gosh! This spring, I'd been showing KC my costume teacher necklaces and kid friendly earrings when we came across the little pouches that contained Tif and Jon's baby teeth. I just hadn't been able to throw them away. Anyway, I showed them to her and told her she'd be losing her teeth someday too.
I totally forgot about the tooth fairy. (For those of my wonderful readers from other countries, children in the U.S. are supposed to leave their baby tooth under their pillow at night after they fall out. While they are sleeping, the tooth fairy is supposed to come and take the tooth away leaving some money to pay for the tooth that she takes away to Tooth Fairy Land.)
I guess KC did not forget what I showed her earlier in the year. She put two and two together and got Grandma the Tooth Fairy.
Remind me not to talk about Easter bunnies or elves or Santa Claus or whatever else. Sigh........
KAY, I can't believe you stashed your children's teeth away in a pouch!! Did you keep locks from their first haircuts too? How about a lachrymatory, a glass tear catcher, in which to store their tears like the ancients did?
ReplyDeleteUmmmm... as a matter of fact, yes. I do have locks of their hair before their first haircut and...ummmm... I also have their umbilical cord stumps when they fell off. I kept it because I knew my mother kept mine. I thought it was important when their last physical connection to me fell off. Wow...tears? That reminds me of how Henry Ford was supposed to have kept Edison's last breath and saved it for posterity. I remember seeing it at Deerfield Museum in Michigan.
DeleteHis last breath?? That reminds me of how some souvenir shops here in Israel sell little bottles of "holy water" from the Jordan and also bottles of holy AIR. Oi...
DeleteOh Kay, what a clever little girl she is. You will have to be careful as clearly she can think things through easily. Yes, the Tooth Fairy travels here too. The only thing I know is that the Fairy has to leave quite a bit of money these days compared to when I was a kid. Now, how are you all going to get out of this one? Maybe you could say you did a deal with the Tooth Fairy and bought the teeth back again, lol. Somehow I don't think your little grand daughter will allow anyone to pull the wool over her eyes. She sounds truly adorable and will keep you all on your toes.
ReplyDeleteAhhhhhh.... So there is an Aussie Tooth Fairy too! That is so cool!
DeleteShe's a smart one. Thinking every minute! I certainly enjoyed this tale of how much our children learn from us without out noticing! :-)
ReplyDeleteShe reminds me of her mother. I remember when Tif saw the logo on a present that Santa Claus gave her and she asked why Santa bought the gift at Ventures (store) when he had elves to do the work.
DeleteHow about Santa Claus? I struggled with tooth fairy, etc and decided to tell the truth with that and Santa because I didn't want my sons to think that the Savior was a myth too. KC is a very smart little girl. I remember how devastated I was when I found out Santa wan't real but only make believe...
ReplyDeleteIt was extremely hard to keep Santa Claus real because there were too many things around with evidence to the contrary.
DeleteI blame the grandmother. I loved the Tooth Fairy. I love fairies period. Santa is a fairy. Tell KC fairies exist. Tinkerbell said so. Dianne
ReplyDeletePS my Hawaiian buddy called them Menehune
That's amazing! She sure is smart.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid we could send our baby teeth away as part of a project to find out if children were absorbing radioactive fallout from nuclear bomb tests.
Oh my goodness! Wow!
DeleteOi veh! Kathy lived in Missouri back then?
DeleteKC is a whiz! I have each of my children's first lost tooth in a small pill box. I'm surprised I didn't share that with my grandchildren when they were growing up. Now about weird things to save...my friend saved her son's first booger in his baby book.
ReplyDeleteOops,....oh well, KC is smart so she would probably have figured out soon anyway. Now she just has to be smart enough to pretend she believes so the money will keep coming. ;)
ReplyDeleteWhoops!! Children remember such random things don't they, but I bet she'll suddenly start believing in the tooth fairy again when she loses her own teeth. Number One Son had to write letters to the tooth fairy when he lost his first two teeth, because one went down the drain and he swallowed the next one. Luckily, the tooth fairy was passing and found the notes.
ReplyDeleteLol!!!! What a smart girl granddaughter is :)
ReplyDeleteKC has the memory of a hawk! Good for her!
ReplyDeleteShe's a smart little girl. Maybe you can explain the tooth fairy gives them back to parents to keep or else her fairy kingdom would sink under the weight of all the teeth.
ReplyDeleteOh too funny!
Deletelol, oh Kay! These things happen. My daughter clued in to Santa when she found a store price tag on some pastel crayons! She was about 8, so that wasn't so bad.
ReplyDeleteSame thing happened with my daughter when she was about six.
DeleteLove your stories so much. Like reading Midweek Ron Nagasawa's article...I always find myself laughing.
ReplyDeleteKC will keep you all on your toes as someone said. She's a thinker for sure. Asking to see the tooth fairy's note as evidence was precious coming from a 5yo. I wonder what she was looking for in the note, and seeing it signed "The Tooth Fairy", would that have convinced her? Her next question after seeing the note might have been, so how did Grandma get the teeth from the tooth fairy? She's probably still needing some answers lol
L. from W.
Poor Grandma Kay -- the tooth fairy wants to come back and get the collection you're hoarding. I saved some molors, but they fell apart with dryness. My kid used to leave notes for the tooth fairy (yep, one was accidentally swallowed,) and sometimes the Fairy would leave a note.
ReplyDeleteHe would send letters to Santa to alert the team as to which house he would be at for Christmas morning (his Dad's or mine,) and when he'd be at the other parent's house around that. Then Santa would write back (in VERY different writing than mine,) with special North Pole postage stamps, that he'd received the information and gave instructions to have the lights on very bright and hay and water for the reindeer, because he'd be dropping in for just that house on the "off-Christmas" morning.
Parents can change holiday dates, and embellish stories, but I'm not sure how to get out of this one. I've told my son to still believe if he wants any gifts.
May want to let the parent of the child in possession of the Tooth Fairy note know what's happened. Of course, collaboration with KC's parents for such adventures will help. Might want to find out what their plan is around the Grandma boo-boo.
I'm still laughing. Thanks for the heads up about being a Grandma, as I'll have to hide some things when my grandkids start to appear.
DrumMajor
Eeegads, Did you show KC the umbilical cord stumps? Wonder what she thinks of that, or why? A classmate may get a new sibling, and she'll wonder about that. I've heard of burying the placenta (forgot which culture and why,) but I hadn't heard of saving the stumps. Can Mom shed some light on that ritual?
ReplyDeleteDrumMajor
Heavens to Betsy! No, I didn't show her the stumps. Those are in an envelope in their Baby Books. I'd better remember NOT to show them to her or she might ask about the facts of life. I need to leave that for her parents.
DeleteNo, I didn't ask mom why she kept them. I assumed she kept them for the same reasons I did. They were just precious to us.
OK, Drum Major, I asked mom. We were out all day with her so I asked her why she kept my umbilical cord since I did the same thing (copying her). She was genuinely surprised that I had to ask. She said, "How can you even ask such a question? The 'heso no o' is very important and precious. All mothers in Japan keep it and give it to their grown children later. It is what tied the child to the mother."
DeleteI just found this on Wikipedia:
"Japanese hospitals typically place the dried up part of the umbilical cord that falls off in a special box specifically designed for this purpose. When the mother leaves the hospital, the umbilical cord is given to her. This tradition relates to ancient Japanese customs based upon the belief that the umbilical cord is connected to the health of the newborn baby. Maltreating it, therefore, risks causing harm or disease in the child. In some Japanese households, a mother may show a child the umbilical cord on a happy event, or on birthdays to recall the day the child was born. In other households, the umbilical cord is given to a child on the day he or she leaves home or gets married to symbolize separation."
So now we all know.
I was teaching Public Speaking on Maui once and this local guy gave a talk about his family. He had eleven brothers and sisters from Plantation Days. When his mother died, the family went through her things and found she had saved the umbilical cords of all twelve children!
ReplyDeleteThere was another dimension to this story. In the course of the umbilical cord story, he mentioned that one brother had contracted Hansen's Disease and had been sent as a child to the Kalaupapa settlement on Molokai. Some years later, a woman was giving a speech in another course about a brother who had been sent to Molokai because of Hansen's Disease. After class, I asked her "Is your brother Mr. So and So? He gave a speech in my class a few years ago." Yes, it was the same family. Hawaii is a small state.
Wow! What an amazing story! I didn't know any of this about the umbilical cord until I wrote this blog post. In fact, I was going to mention something in the post itself, but I didn't because Art said he thought there might be some readers who might be turned off by it. My cousin wrote something to me personally instead of commenting on the post itself probably for the same reason. Now I have a whole new understanding about that umbilical cord and wished I'd kept my granddaughter's. What would I have done with it? I don't know... but it seems even more precious now.
DeleteYes indeed, Hawaii is a really, really small state. And since my grandfather once ministered to those (Buddhist) victims of Hansen's Disease, what if he knew that brother too?
Mahalo for the information and history! Glad you got this clarified with your Mom, since you are already in trouble for skipping school to go to the library. Your worldwide education blogs are making up for such adventures. Maybe Tiff kept KC's cord stump? I was glad to get rid of it, from having to take care of it so much. My child may be ruined, but I didn't have a Japanese tradition to guide me.
ReplyDeleteInteresting thought about the box at the hospital. These days, most babies (and their Moms,) aren't kept at the hospital long enough for the stump to dry up and fall off, and it occurs at home.
Okay - this could make a good report (some day, not in kindergarden) for KC. You'll need to send her a photo of the two you have, later, in the future. You're still in trouble with the Tooth Fairy.
DrumMajor
You can tell and write wonderful stories, Kay! This is so funny , I think your granddaughter will become a wise adult, and will not be deceived by any person.
ReplyDeleteMy eldest daughter is like that and probably two or three of my grandchildren too. Their mother is wise but more in a philosophical way.
Kay, whatever you write about always turns into such an interesting sharing. I learn so much here.
ReplyDeletehahahahahahahaha..KC is indeed very intelligent..my daughter is ten years now and she still thinks that tooth fairy do exist and bring chocolates for every broken tooth..now you have to be very cautious of what you say..:)
ReplyDeleteBusted! That's so cute,
ReplyDelete