The Tooth Fairy’s M.O.

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Terry L. Holt

Art by Laurel

What does the Tooth Fairy do with all those teeth?

Laurel, age 6: (speaking in a lisp, as she just lost a front tooth this morning) I think that the Tooth Fairy umm, when we lose our tooth, she takes our tooth and gives us a tip for the tooth. And she takes the tooth home and puts it on her pile of teeth so she can make a teeth castle. So she will have a castle, and she gives us tips, of course. Today, I lost a tooth. I don’t know where it is. I was going to write a note to her saying that I lost my tooth, and I am very happy that I lost my tooth. The End.

Oh, wait. What I wanted to say was that the Tooth Fairy collects all those teeth, and she gets money for them, and with the money she BUYS a castle. Yeah. That’s what I meant to say.

—————————

Kelsey, age 8: I think that the Tooth Fairy uses human teeth for making new human teeth, since in the morning sometimes the mouths of human babies have more teeth because the Tooth Fairy saves all the teeth in a humongous jar and at just the right time she comes at night and gives teeth to babies!

P.S. I think there are a bunch of Tooth Fairies. A group of fairies, and they all work together to get all the teeth up to the giant jar, because for one tooth fairy, it’s really hard to lift even one tooth, because tooth fairies are tiny, like pixies.

—————————

PLEASE go check out the comments on this post to read the imaginative tales spun by my friends–Carolyn, Tom, and Sarah–about the Tooth Fairy. I can’t wait to read these stories to my kids!

Thanks for reading!

Posted in Journal, Kelsey Milestones, Laurel Milestones, Photo of the Day | View Comments

Photo of the Day: Missing Tooth!

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Terry L. Holt

I hope the Tooth Fairy will understand!

Laurel’s front left tooth had been dangling loosely for a few weeks. She literally lost it last night while she slept, and we have no idea where it is. We’ll write a letter this evening for the Tooth Fairy, who will have to be very quiet tonight when she sneaks into our house on her mysterious recon mission, as there will be 4 children in the girls’ room for a sleepover.

Sometimes I wonder what the Tooth Fairy does with all those teeth. Isn’t that a little creepy, to collect small-human teeth? What’s your story? Tell me in the comments or email me at terry@mothermirth.com and tell us what you think the Tooth Fairy does with all the human teeth she collects! **

I’ll ask the girls what THEY think the Tooth Fairy does with the teeth. I’ll let you know what they say.

**please play nicely. My kids will read this.
Posted in Journal, Laurel Milestones, Photo of the Day | View Comments

The Hair Saga, Continued

Posted on August 28, 2010 by Terry L. Holt

Before

My husband and I each cut 10 inches of hair off our heads. And we still have what most of mainstream society would call long hair. So, how do we feel about being shorn?

In a word? Lighter.

Last night, we shuffled off our two older children onto a friend (thanks, Jessica!) so that we could get haircuts and a few hours without having to juggle ALL of our children. Allen and I made it to Salon Cu in Ball Square, Somerville, right on time for our appointment. We were blessed last minute by a visit from our friend, Erica, who helped watch the baby, take photos, and cheered us on.

It took about 5 minutes for my stylist, Jackie, to brush out my hip-length hair, mark the length to cut, braid the hair below the mark, and cut.  Five minutes to cut off hair that I’d been ignoring and half-assedly grooming for years. I immediately felt as though a headache that had been nagging me for years was suddenly lifted.

The cut!

Jackie placed the braid on the shelf in front of me and proceeded to cut and style my hair, cutting in long layers. It’s now a little longer than shoulder-length, lying just above my bra-strap. She then spent about 30 minutes drying and shaping my hair with a round brush while I tried not to giggle with all the attention my much neglected hair was getting. It’s not like it will ever look this good ever again. I own a hairdryer for one reason: to blow up air mattresses.

Allen, pre-cut

Allen has had thinning hair on top for a few years now, and he’s been struggling with the idea of cutting his hair ALL OFF and going with the bald look. I’ve been lobbying on behalf of his hair for years. Because I love his long hair. He decided to listen to the stylist’s advice to go shorter and cut layers in. Thank the gods.

His hair is now above his shoulders, and it’s taken a lot of weight off his scalp. I was afraid it would end up being a page boy kind of cut, and he’d have to get a nose piercing and a facial tattoo to keep his weirdo cred, but he’s looking good. He’s still rocking the tall, long-haired hippie freak/geek vibe.

Allen, de-ponytailed!

We both endured the coiffing that comes at the end of a haircut from a real salon, trying to be patient while our awesome stylists played with our hair and made it do gorgeous things like be flippy and light as air and move in ways not natural to our hair. It’s fun to be pampered. And there was one very not happy Rockstar, wailing in the background as my stylist was finishing up. He caught a glimpse of me and remembered that he hadn’t eaten in hours.  So, I flipped my hair around a bit, rescued the sad boy from the very tired arms of the ever-patient Erica, and nursed him in the lobby while we waited for Allen.

A couple of coiffed hippies (front view)

All in all, we lost 20 inches of hair between us. We feel lighter and slightly more contemporary. To celebrate, we brought Erica along and had dinner at The Boston Burger Company in Davis Square, where we sat at the table by the front window, flipping our hair around like divas and grinning like idiots.

Allen has showered this morning, and his hair is looking much more normal, with some natural curl and messiness instead of the coiffed look of last night. He looks much more like himself. I like the messy look. As for me, well, I think I’ll go with the styled look for at least one more day. My hair feels like silk! And I want to flip it around some more and play the role of a more put-together woman.

Tomorrow, I’ll go back to the regular, messy-haired me!

Posted in Change, Huge very big things, Journal, Photo of the Day | Tagged | View Comments

Every End is a New Beginning

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Terry L. Holt

Laurel the Lion, in her natural morning state: reading Calvin & Hobbs

The last few days have reminded me just how close autumn is. The temperature dropped in that dramatic way it sometimes does in late August, a temporary respite from a blindingly hot summer. Still, the 60s temperatures signal an impending end to summer vacation. Only a few more weeks to enjoy spontaneous adventures with kids, to spend hours not knowing what time it is, and days where tracking the date is unimportant to our scheming.

The signs are all pointing to Fall as my town prepares for the change in season. We counted more cars parked at the school across the street from our house, and we can spy people going into the front doors with their arms laden with boxes. We received letters from new teachers, little notes telling us how much their teachers are looking forward to meeting our kids at the beginning of the new school year. The town reservoir closes next week to swimmers, and the Fall soccer league sent out its annual email, preparing parents for the upcoming schedule of practices and games. Soon, the ice cream trucks cease making their every 30-minute rotation. I envision the trucks being cleaned out and put into the garage for repairs for next summer’s hard work of making every little kid in town smile and every grown up cringe. I wonder what the smiling man who sells me rocket pops and fruit bars does when the season turns to thoughts of warm apple cider and pumpkin bread.

Little things in my home remind me of how life changes in subtle ways at the end of summer.  The coconut oil in my pantry turned from liquid to solid. The oil burner clicked on for just a few minutes last night, reminding me that it’s time to set up an account with a local oil company. And as I folded clothes fresh from the dryer, I noted the pile of long-sleeve shirts that I had set aside in June. Consistent short-sleeve weather does not last terribly long here in New England. The tights and sweaters live year-round in our bureaus and closets, but we don’t SEE them. We have eyes only for summer dresses, for the big basket filled with swimsuits, floaties, beach blankets, and goggles.

What I love about living in New England is the excitement at the beginning of a new season. It’s a feeling I missed in the 23 years I lived in Florida, where seasons have an indeterminate end. I remember swimming in October when we first moved from Marblehead, Massachusetts to Pensacola, Florida in 1980. It was an unsettling but amazing feeling to body surf in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico at a time of year leading up to Halloween. I felt like we were breaking the rules, the rhythms of the life I knew in the first 10 years of my existence. The warmth of summer never broke to make way for Fall the way it does here. I know that there will still be hot days left in the last weeks of summer living here in the Greater Boston Area. But those days are numbered.

Soon, our family calendar will be filled with schedules and plans as the pace of our lives picks up. There will be homework. And arguments about taking the time to do the homework. But there will also be playdates and birthday parties, ballet classes for the little girl, soccer games for the big girl. I will have to find shoes as my little guy starts to take his first steps in cooler weather. I know that I will miss this time of crawling baby, this time of bare-footing, this day of children dressing up like lions and princesses, reading for hours on the couch as the morning passes into afternoon. And I also look forward to going from 3 children to 1 for 6 hours each day.

I see you, Fall. You are right there, just beyond the horizon. And there is so much to look forward to, and so many things to mourn. That is the way with change, isn’t it?

Posted in Change, Journal, Photo of the Day | View Comments

Project Simplify: The Failure

Posted on August 24, 2010 by Terry L. Holt

Our Mom is totally losing her cred here....

This week, I fail at being a conscientious reusing/reducing/recycling citizen. You can take away my GREEN card. I am sorry, Mother Earth. Give me my time out. Make me stand in a corner. I’ve been a bad girl.

My ambitious plan to live a more simple life is becoming more and more complicated as I flail about, try to figure out how to best reuse things, pass along our used items, and produce less waste to be transported to a landfill. In my defense, it’s also summer, and I have almost NO time to spare for the implementation lately, and not enough attention for following through with most of my big objectives.

Still. It sucks to feel like you’re failing at something you were so motivated about initially.

My big idea for back-to-school shopping involved figuring out which of my friends have older/bigger children than mine, and begging for their cast offs. This is not working, as it’s rather hard to procure twirlable dresses for the 6 year old and t-shirts with robots and/or puppies on them for the 8 year old. Buying from a consignment store is better than going to Target, right? Except that the prices are either the same OR HIGHER at the consignment store! Yeah, right, and then I’ll replace our toilet paper with twenty-dollar bills! I really can’t do something that is so financially wasteful. So it looks like I’ll be hitting the sales racks at *insert department store name here* and trying not to beat myself up too much about it.

I have even failed lately at putting the organic waste into the compost bucket in the yard. Mostly because, ahem, COMPOSTING IS UTTERLY DISGUSTING *wretch, hurl, ewwwww, icccckk*. We use a small plastic bin to temporarily store the compostables until we can bring them outside, but it stinks when I open the cover, and it keeps getting dropped onto the floor, to the jollies of the ever-present fruit flies, who hover in my kitchen’s corners like crack-addict buzzards. No one wants to continue the composting experiment we started at the beginning of spring with such high hopes. My kids, who LOVE science and bugs and getting dirty, have gone on strike over the disgusting chore of emptying the compost.

And lastly, I have items that are seriously worn to nubs, and I don’t know what to do with them. Like the bathrobe Allen got me in 1998. Or the 15-year-old stompy platform shoes that are too worn out to pass along. I’m sure there are clever uses for these much-loved but worn-out things, right? Martha Stewart could probably transform that robe into a sassy winter wrap or a spiffy looking blanket. She could make delicious meat-free burgers from the worn shoe leather of my stompy shoes. I, on the other hand, threw them in a trash bag and “stored” the bag in my basement.

And speaking of basements — mine is where clutter lives in perpetuity. What I want to do is rent a dumpster and be less sentimental. But that would also mean sending stuff off to the landfill instead of being conscientious and thoughtful about my refuse. I should put things on Craigs List and Freecycle, have a yard sale, advertise my cast offs on the town’s list serv.

Should. It’s a word I use too often these days. I should do something about that.

What do YOU do when you have too many “shoulds” but even more “don’t wannas” and a serious lack of time/motivation/energy to get stuff done? Should I just get the ADD diagnosis now, eat more bran, drink more coffee, have a beer, get a life?

Posted in Bad Mommy Day, Journal, Photo of the Day | Tagged | View Comments