Mother of a Man-Child

When I am not being Mother of a Man-Child I like to think of myself as Mother-of-a-Princess.  My seven-year-old daughter is my princess, and she is an absolute delight.  Like all good seven-year olds, she still believes in all the wonderful magic of Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny and of course the Tooth Fairy.

She is so enamored with these magical beings that at every opportunity she leaves a gorgeous, heartfelt, hand-written note full of all the sincerity and love only an innocent seven-year old can muster.

Each time she leaves a note for the tooth fairy, she asks some personal questions so she can understand a little more about their magical lives.  So the first time, she wanted to know how tooth fairies knew that children had lost their tooth (a special homing device of course).  And then she wanted to know how old the tooth fairy was (10 fairy years) and when her birthday was  (we made the executive decision that it would be January 1 in the event you want to join my conspiracy).   Most recently (see pic) she wanted to know the particular tooth fairy’s name (Daisy).  For some reason we always refer to the tooth fairy as a girl, although perhaps next time it should be a boy to ensure some equality of the tooth fairy sexes.

As we discussed the note and the fact that the fairy had cleverly found one of my daughter’s special magical Textas (amazing isn’t she), the next round of questions began.   How big do you think they are (we both imagine they are very small)?  How do they get the tooth out of the water?  I mentioned they might have scuba gear! What about their wings?  How do they fly if they get wet?  They’re waterproof of course!  Or maybe they just use a fishing rod?

No doubt she went off to school with her head buzzing with the possibilities.  I for one had hysterical visions of a miniature tooth fairy clad in said scuba gear with wings protruding from the wetsuit and goggles on looking for a pearly white at the bottom of the deep glass.

It really is such a delightful time of innocence and joy to see the absolute belief they have in all things magical and make-believe.  Fancy those naysayers who espouse it is wrong to “lie” to children at a young age and say they should not be told fictitious tales about Santa and the Easter Bunny at all.  Party poopers!

Believe it or not we actually got the men-children to 10 years old before we broke the news about Father Christmas to them.  And that was only because we were travelling in the car with the kids pre-Christmas and we had no way to hide the boxes of presents without them becoming suspicious.  Of course we swore them to secrecy as their sister was only three and threatened them with near death if they ever ruined the fun for our “Princess”.  So far so good.  I actually think the boys enjoy being part of the conspiracy.  And so the magic continues. 🙂