I forgot how the Tooth Fairy works.

Sam hit a long-awaited milestone last week.

At six-and-a-half, that was the first tooth he lost and he was VERY excited about it. He actually lost it at school, and the secretary gave him a cute little treasure box to put the tooth in. He couldn’t stop smiling all day. It was adorable. And he was SO EXCITED for the Tooth Fairy to come that night.

I had dinner with friends that evening (and I’m going to blame the margarita for what came next. I only had one. Okay, two. But they were small medium.), and when I got home Sam and Andy were both asleep, but Kate had waited up for me to make sure I performed my duties. I went in to Sam’s room, slid a dollar under his pillow, went back to tell Kate she could stop holding vigil and go to bed, and hit the sack myself.

Anyone notice the missing step there? Yeah.

The next morning, Sam came into our room devastated. He was crying and said, “The Tooth Fairy didn’t take my tooth!” I said some choice words in my head and then made up some nonsense about her not being able to find it without waking him up. He wasn’t having it, though. I don’t know why that particular part of the ritual was so important to him, but it was, and I totally screwed it up. Kate scooped up the tooth before Sam came into his room after school that day, and she told him to check and see if the Tooth Fairy had come back for it. By that point he was fairly mollified… but this is one of those things that I’m going to remember, even if he doesn’t.

There are plenty of other things for me to screw up before my kids turn 18, but rest assured the Tooth Fairy won’t make that mistake again!

{Cue Jenny telling me how smart she is for not playing along with any made up rites of passage that require adult intervention.}