Life: Idiotropic

What do goldfish and shiny money have in common? Well, for starters, they are both gold. And, more importantly, they both flush equally well.

So you know that I'm officially a bad tooth fairy. I was great with Tiara. She always got her timely coin. Her teeth, saved, were always tucked away where she would never find them. She would not, for example, find one on the floor near Luci's bed after a mischievous sister had been snooping around my office and opened up a container where a tooth was stashed.

No, Tiara would never have heard me with my Oscar winning drama exclaim, "Oh my goodness! The tooth fairy must have dropped that one. Let's put it under your pillow again and see what happens."

Tiara never got two gifts for one sneaky tooth. And, her tooth fairy never forgot.

Sad, but true. On Tuesday at school Arianna bit her tooth twice and on second accidental collision, it popped out. She saved it wadded up in a tissue, brought it home, picked off most of the tissue bits from it, then put it under her pillow. I tucked her in, said good-night, got busy with who knows what, and forgot. The next morning I remembered just as I heard her cry in horror. "The tooth fairy didn't come!" Tears, drama, disappointment. And, mom guilt.

Time for another Oscar performance... "Oh, don't worry. People make mistakes and I bet tooth fairies do too. May be she had too many teeth to pick up on one night. Think about all your friends at school missing teeth. I bet a lot of kids have lost their teeth this week. Let's put it under your pillow again and see what happens."

This time I remembered. I was in her room when in a groggy early morning stupor she began to sit up and slipped her hand slowly under her pillow. "Mom! Look what the tooth fairy brought! And my tooth is gone!" Now she was happy, ecstatic, cheerful, and bouncing with heartfelt squeaks of glee. She held in her hand some special shiny gold colored USA coin that Kirk bought for just this occasion when he was in D.C. this past summer. It was in a case and it was beautiful. She got dressed and slipped it into her pocket.

Against my judgement, I didn't say anything to her - feeling bad about the previous day - and let her take it to school.

At 1oam I was sitting at Bagels and Beans drinking my large foamy cappuccino with a friend. My cell phone rang. It was Kirk with a bit of news.

The school called. Arianna went to the bathroom and her coin fell out of her pocket and into the toilet and then the toilet automatically flushed. Arianna was heartbroken and hysterical. Kirk calmed her down on the phone. Luckily, he had a shiny gold coin he bought at the Notre Dame in Paris... that would make a good replacement.

This afternoon while I was driving to the base my cell phone rung again. Arianna fell (was pushed) off of the boat (a TALL piece of play equipment) and hurt her ear (and also put a 10" rip in her skirt). More tears. Her teacher later told me that my tough girl sat with her ear throbbing, one arm up in the air pinning the ice pack against her ear while she finished her homework with the other hand. My poor girl was so completely worn out when she finally got home.

This evening we avoided all things tall and cleared pockets before using the bathroom.

(Ok, I'm tired and giving up... our Paris Day 2 entry is almost written and I have a toothless photo of Madame Drama to post... so I'll add those tomorrow when I'm a little more coherent.)