An expectant visit from the Tooth Fairy

Princess J is now five years old, and her first milk tooth is about to be lost. I know this as she keeps saying her tooth is wobbling. As she presses her tongue up against a tooth to the front there’s a slight give. Not a lot but enough to say sayonara tooth it’s about to drop out any minute, but it will do. Then Princess J starts to talk about the Tooth fairy, how she can’t wait for her tooth to drop out so she can  

put it under her pillow and then get money for it. Because an exchange of money would be fair, especially when the fairy puts it there, for the real excitement is about the tooth fairy, because apparently a window has to be left open as well, otherwise she won’t be able to fly in. The tooth gets pushed again this time with a finger and Princess J says “would you like to feel it?” Of course it is compulsory to feel said tooth and see if it does move. So I do, the movement is so slight as to be debatable whether it is actually moving or not.

Being five and losing a milk tooth seems a little early to me, but to Princess J it is an exciting event. In the back of my mind I’m wishing it was not such an exciting event as my little Princess is growing up, it’s one of those markers. Maybe she will not want me to play with her so much or not want to beat me up. No, she’s five I got a couple of more years. Then there’s the issue of wanting to believe in a non-existent entity. How can I enquire what is going on in this little one’s mind.

So I ask Princess if she has seen the Tooth fairy and she says no she hasn’t. So I ask her what the Tooth fairy looks like and she’s like telling me the fairy is little. So I ask what about the Sugar Plum fairy and Princess J tells me there is no such thing as the Sugar Plum fairy and I should not be noising her up. OK I change tact. Then ask how about we try and trap the tooth fairy. At which Princess J’s eyes light up, the thought of catching a fairy I guess must have been just as exciting as photographing the Cottingly Fairies which sadly took in gullibility of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of all people. I asked what we could do when we caught the Tooth fairy and her reply was to take all the fairy’s money and buy everything we needed. No doubt in her mind she was thinking about getting more sweets, and losing more teeth an ironic sense of logic. I then tried a little bit of bartering. Offering to buy Princess  No doubt there was some kind of logic somewhere which is segregated in her mind and applies to Tooth fairies, monsters and Santa. No matter how much I pressed Princess J on what the Tooth fairy looked like or some other rational question I was reprimanded and then told I wasn’t allowed to talk about the Tooth fairy. No doubt because imaginative little girls don’t like their view of the world challenged. In asking if Santa existed I also got an affirmative “yes.”  I then tried to see if Princess

J  would sell her and miss out on the fairy. So offered to give her five pounds for her tooth. But little Princess wasn’t having it. The tooth was for the Tooth fairy. We made pretend a trap for the tooth fairy. This minor detour lasted all of two minutes because it was all pretend. I wasn’t too sure what Princess J needed to buy, on account she’s given everything she needs all the time. Perhaps I should of asked her how the Tooth fairy could carry lots of money on account of her being so small. One thing for sure was Princess had an inclining of what money meant.

Well, at least we hadn’t gone into the subject of religion, it seems five year old princesses need to have imagination and a non-reality. Which at the moment doesn’t include non-existent gods. Well at least the Tooth fairy would inevitably evaporate as she doesn’t exist in adult belief systems. Well, most adults that is.