The Tooth Fairy Strikes AGAIN!

AKA: Mom got no sleep the other night and may just put a ban on losing teeth for a few months!

I was in a mood. I felt claustrophobic, annoyed, bugged and god help you if you were the person who left a string cheese wrapper wedged under the cushion on the couch from who knows when...I was in. a. mood.

I grumbled around the house muttering things like, "Can't you people keep your things in your own rooms?" And, "If I find one more granola bar wrapper, there will be NO MORE SNACKS! Period." And, "I think I may be raising a bunch of chimpanzees. . . who can't pick up after themselves."

Oh, yes, I told you I was in a mood.

It took me until much later in the day, holding down my post in the Adirondack chair on the dock, sipping an icy beverage next to my mom, to realize why I had been so foul, so contemptible, so g-r-u-m-p-y in the morning. I had had hardly any sleep.

You guessed it, the tooth fairy was on patrol the night before and like I've said before, that is never an easy job in this house. Never!

Wyatt had been jonesing to lose a tooth for months. His brother's seemingly pre-meditated plan to lose as many teeth between January and April only made his desire worse. You could see the pain on his face when McRae would run into his room the morning after losing yet another tooth clutching a shiny, new, "gold" dollar coin.

"You will lose your teeth when they're ready." I told my 10 year old son, not believing the words coming from my mouth. But like everything else between the brothers, the loss of teeth had become a competition. And the game was on.

When the wiggling started, Wyatt was beside himself. He yanked on that tooth. He pulled on that tooth. He was downright giddy when he could slip his tongue under that tooth and make weird noises in the space beneath it.

It was the fastest wiggle to loss I'd ever seen, as he had that tooth out within a week - determined to join his brother in the tooth hall of fame, or whathaveyou.

And so that brings us to the night before my "grumpfest 2009." Which, of course, fell on a night that my husband was slumbering peacefully and uninterrupted (yes, these nights really do happen at the firestation) at work.

Wyatt has a really, really squeaky spot on his floor. As luck would have it, this spot is located almost directly under the prime real estate when one is trying to locate a tooth under the pillow of the sleeper. Directly.

That was my first obstacle.

Wyatt also sleeps really, really lightly. As luck would have it, someone had decided to light off a bunch of fireworks and what sounded like dynamite somewhere nearby and that woke him up just as I was planning to creep in there and get the job done.

Wyatt fell asleep on his back with his ENTIRE arm under his pillow! He never sleeps like this, but, as luck would have it, this night, he did. Have you ever tried to find a Ziploc bag under someone's pillow when they have their ENTIRE arm under there? Not easy. In fact, impossible.

Finally, at whoknowswhattime, I woke him up in a desperate attempt to get him to switch positions so that I could go to bed.

Who does that? Who wakes up their sleeping child in the middle of the night?

The Toothfairy, that's who.

To bed, oh glorious bed, I went.

As luck would have it, that same child who lost a tooth was up an hour later with a stomach ache (too much pizza) looking for the Pepto Bismol in the hall closet...hall light blasting onto the previously sleeping eyes of his mother who, in turn, was a complete and utter grouch in the morning despite the fact that she helped him find the disgusting pink medicine, kissed him, and walked him back to bed...seemingly on autopilot.

It's a wonder I survived those newborn years, isn't it?