Of Fairy Doors and Magic

Last week Sarah was just about ready to lose her first tooth.  Her first two teeth, actually.  I’ve been told it’s rare to lose two teeth at once, especially two right next to each other.  Sarah’s loss, though spectacular, is made somewhat less singular when you take into account that the only reason they were both loose at once was because she ran into a wall while racing Evee through the house.

This is right after the first one came out.  The second one fell a few hours later.

She’s happy about it, though.  For the last six months at least she’s come to me from time to time announcing gleefully that one of her teeth is finally loose and as soon as it comes out the Tooth Fairy will come and bring her presents!  To her dismay, the teeth were never actually loose, and we had to have a talk with her about how the Tooth Fairy doesn’t take lists of requests a la Santa.

It did make me start to wonder what exactly the Tooth Fairy should bring, though.  And how to do it?  As soon as her teeth waxed loose for real she began telling us all that she was going to catch the Tooth Fairy.  For those of you not acquainted with my eldest, she has a bit of a sneaky streak in her.  I wouldn’t put it past her to hold the tooth in her fist all night, or hide it elsewhere in her bed, or tie it to a string connected to her finger, etc.  I’ll be the first to admit her determination to catch the Tooth Fairy intimidated me.  What kind of mystical creature would I be if I were caught on my very first night on the job?

In hindsight I could have just made Jack do it.  Then, at least, the weight of the disillusionment of our child wouldn’t have been on my shoulders. 

Instead, I came up with a different solution, aided by the lovely people on Pinterest who think up everything better than you could ever do on your own.  A fairy door!  They’re cute, easy to obtain, and massively simplify the ‘searching under your sleeping child’s pillow for a tooth that may or may not be there’ problem. 

I drug the kids down to the Hobby Lobby and let them help me pick one out, along with all the paint colors.  I wanted it to look nice, so when we got home I painted the front and the kids did the back (where the fairy comes in from, so it’s the side she sees).

The fairy door sits on the floor just inside the kid’s room.  The tooth is placed on the front porch where is it traded for a dollar in the darkness of the cold, still night.

My childrens are delighted and I’m starting to wonder what other fairies could visit our house through our oh-so-convenient door. 

How did your parents instill a sense of magical wonderment into your childhood? What do you do for your kids?