F_*# YOU TOOTH FAIRY!

Who the HELL came up with this "Tooth Fairy" bullshit. I would like to declare war on her and her entire oral kingdom. If I actually caught anything remote looking to her either flying or twinkling through my house at this very moment, I would pluck her wings off one by one - very, very slowly. Then I would set her on the ground and order her to "FLY NOW, BITCH!"

You see, we can not be the only parents negatively impacted by the existence of such a thing. I am sick and tired of losing almost two hours of my precious sleep each night one of our kids loses a tooth. My God, we have FOUR KIDS!! That's got to be at least 40 nights of our lives, at LEAST! It's a disgusting plaque coated piece of enamel for god sake. The Tooth Fairy's kingdom must be the foulest smelling place on earth.

Last night, I could have came down to type for hours. Probably around 2:30am. Reason being, I realized that I had forgotten to try to "steal" Samantha's tooth and replace it with cash or coins - well let's just say coins because in this house it is guaranteed that on those specific nights neither Mark or I will ever have a few dollar bills in our wallets. We might have a $20, but there is no fucking way we have singles. And of course we don't realize this until after bedtime.

So, last night I went to do the exchange after hoarding our lunch money stash in the kitchen cupboard. Three bucks worth of quarters. Not much compared to the $10 bill they get if lucky enough to lose a tooth at their Dad's house, but hey, 98% of teeth fall out while with us, and I am not ready to take out a loan in today's economic crisis. Slowly, I tip-toed into their room and approached the creative new tooth dock she has built on her door: A tooth chart for when she plays school in her room, with an attached paper bucket built to fit our new pink and purple tooth pillow. In addition, I am prepared to retract the cool plastic knotted bracelet she was so kind to make me - er, I mean so kind to make the "Tooth Fairy". I was determined to have a successful mission my first go around.

I made it in with no one rolling over or popping their head up. This is a good sign.

I slowly crept over to the paper tooth bucket taped to her closet door where we had carefully placed everything for pickup earlier that night at bedtime.

Carefully, quietly, I look into the bucket. No fucking tooth pillow. I reach my hand in - maybe it's too dark and my eyes aren't adjusted. Nope. Nothing. That slimy little kid decided to do a switcheroo on me - er, I mean on the "Tooth Fairy" - and land that tooth and bracelet under one of her pillows on her top bunk. Are you kidding ME?? I can hardly reach my hand to the top level of the bunk, let alone reach around and prod without waking a soul. My life sucked at that moment.

As I pouted back to my bedroom, I was met with Mark's caring words: "Did ya get it honey?"

"No." [Sulking as any failure of a mother would do.]

"What? Did they wake up?"

"No. It's not there."

Now, for the sake of not losing my readers, let's fast forward one hour: Mark and I deciding if we should just wake up and have coffee - be it only 3:49am. We went through at least 10 different scenarios after 4 unsuccessful attempts.

Finally, the best alternative I could think of: I wrote a letter and left it under Samantha's shoes by the front door, noting that I couldn't take her tooth because her little sister kept waking up... Mark made me rip it up. Isn't that some Elf tradition around Christmas or something? Don't I realize she'll recognize my poorly disguised handwriting? UGH. I suck at this shit.

So, after deciding at 3:57 am that this topic had to be my next blog entry, I guiltily came to the conclusion that whatever Samantha's take was on waking up to her tooth still being under her pillow, she'd at least be 3 bucks richer this morning. And I needed to get some fucking sleep.

F_*# You Tooth Fairy. I am warning you. Stay away from my home. I have been sharpening my tweezers for the past 2 hours. Game on.