I think it is pretty adorable that my son, who tells me condescendingly that Santa “lives in all our hearts,” believes in the Tooth Fairy.
In fact, the Tooth Fairy forgot our house last night and it caused a great deal of concern. The idea that Charles put forth was that perhaps the T.F. was really busy or maybe she doesn’t work Mondays.
On the way home today Dillon was trying to calculate how many teeth a tooth fairy has to collect in a night, assuming a U.S. Population estimate that I provided that perhaps there were 300 million people in the country, and maybe 50 million of them were kids who were in the teeth-losing demographic. Then we talk about how often he loses a tooth, and he estimates about one per month, but I think it’s probably more like one every other month. So that makes 25 million kids lose a tooth this month, divided by thirty for who lost a tooth yesterday… And I am totally beyond the math I can do in my head in the car while I am driving, and so I distract him by saying that it’s definitely more than 100,000 kids and ask what he did at school today.
When we get home he and Rose go to his room and I am not really sure what’s happening until Rose comes out with $5. Apparently, Dillon was concerned about her lack of savings and decided to give her something to start out with. When I got wind of what was happening I asked her to return the money and reminded them that we had just calculated what we owed them in allowance money since the kids haven’t collected it (pretty much ever) I had them figure out the parents’ debt from January 1st on…
So then they disappear again and Rose comes back, saying she never got money from the tooth fairy. Which is true. She’s never brought a tooth home. At least two of them I am positive that she swallowed in a bagel. (I know, totally gross.) So D helps her write a note, explaining to the tooth fairy “YOU OWE ME FOR FOUR TEETH THAT I ATE” in 6-year-old handwriting… I guess they figured since the TF was already coming to the house tonight she’d better settle old debts.
The best part about the attempt to calculate how many teeth the TF might gather in one night was the fact that he didn’t start with asking his Mom how many teeth the TF gathers each night. He started with “How many people live in the United States, ” with a plan to find the answer himself.
Now I have to ask him why just the U.S?
He actually started by asking “How many people live in the US and Canada,” but I have no concept whatsoever about the Canadian population. I was pretty proud I had a decent idea (within 4 million people) about how many people live in the US.
Now, why he thinks the tooth fairy’s regional territory is the US and Canada, that one I have no idea about.