In Her Words

The other day, my daughter and her friend sat at my kitchen table eating lunch. Two little 6-year-olds, sunbrowned and messy, fueling up for a long afternoon of dress-up, followed by a trip to the town pool. I was there, but barely. After setting out their lunch (and I might add, squeezing the lemons for their lemonade - can I get some kind of gold star?), I went back to my laptop, which I am pretty sure my daughter thinks is her sibling and main rival for attention. I was tap tap tapping away when a piece of their chatter caught my attention.

"What's that, Olivia," I asked my daughter's friend. "What about fairies and the full moon?"

She regarded me solemnly.

"They come out at the full moon."

"Oh really?" I smiled. "I didn't know that!"

My daughter, Isabella, offered, "Yes, she knows because she left them a present and they left HER one."

Aha. "You mean like the tooth fairy?" I asked, hopefully.

No, apparently not like the tooth fairy. The tooth fairy comes for teeth (I picture her with a knife in her boot and a thick money clip, Tony Soprano style), but regular fairies, it seems, come to Olivia's house oh just ANY OLD TIME. And LEAVE PRESENTS.

Uh oh.

Houston, we have a problem. Later that day, I grilled my friend, Olivia's mom. Yes, it was true ... Olivia, being a very bright and enterprising little girl, figured if she placed a tooth in her tooth fairy pillow and received a gift of money, why not try it out another night? After all, teeth only fall out every so often. They're hard to rush. And, it seems, Olivia's daddy, a fun-loving and energetic daddy, seeing as how it was near the full moon, made a quick call to some local fairies and ... poof! A whole new level of middle-of-the-night fairying was invented.

Did he not understand the repercussions of his actions?

As I regarded the gleam in my little girl's eye, I did.