When the wife and I decided that we wanted to start a family, and then when she found out she was pregnant, I started thinking of all the events and roles I would be taking on; How I would be killing spiders, and cleaning up spills, and doing laundry, and rocking the kid to sleep, wrapping gifts on Christmas Eve, and reading stories at bedtime. All the fun, and endearing tasks that I would have to do seemed exciting, and I couldn’t wait to get started.
But as I thought of all of these cute fun fatherly roles I would take on; one never crossed my mind – Tooth Fairy. It’s a little funny that it never dawned on me, even when the kid was first cutting her teeth. But Tooth Fairy has become one of my favorite roles.
I think what I like most about it is that it requires many different fatherly skills. First is the cheerleader role when the kid loses a tooth. Sometimes she needs a little encouragement to pull the tooth, but on the whole, it’s just matching her excitement of losing the it. Then comes the night and the tooth placed under the pillow. For that, I need my ninja skills of entering the room undetected, the calm hand of getting the tooth from under the pillow, and replacing it with a dollar. And on one occasion, I had to employ my acting skills, as the kid woke up, wondering why I was in her room. I played it off, saying that I thought I heard the Tooth Fairy, which did the trick. And then there is just that silly sweetness of the morning when the kid wakes up, excited that another moment of childhood magic has occurred.
As in all things, even the Tooth Fairy has a limited life span, and I will enjoy the time I have.
