You Can't Trick the Tooth Fairy...

It's not easy being the "little brother" and feeling like you're missing out on so many exciting, new things. Eli has been completely enthralled with the whole tooth-loosing-Tooth-Fairy-coming process. It seems just as magical as Christmas to him. When Oakley lost his second tooth on Monday, Eli was so excited that the Tooth Fairy would be coming to our house that very night! Oakley is always the first one to sleep between the two. When I went in later that night to check on them before I went to bed, I checked under Oakley's pillow to make sure his tooth was still there, wrapped up in a Kleenex, for the Tooth Fairy to find. It wasn't there. I checked around and under his bed. No tooth. It didn't take long for me to figure out where it was. I know in his four-year-old heart he was thinking he could out-smart the Tooth Fairy. I'm sure he laid there quietly waiting for Oakley to go to sleep and then snatched up the treasured lost tooth to use for his own gain. I'm sure he was giddy with excitement over the thought of the dollar bills that he would find in place of the tooth in the morning. The funniest part of the story was the look on Eli's face the next morning when Oakley was gleefully dancing around their room waving the dollar bills in his hands. I got to their room just in time to see Eli hurry and look under his pillow - to find nothing. Priceless- the look was priceless. I wonder how his brain put it all together- how did the tooth get back under Oakley's pillow?!?!?! - but it's an important life lesson to learn - you can't trick the Tooth Fairy.

Scott remembers one Christmas he snuck into the living room to take an early peek. He saw a Curious George stuffed animal on his brother's pile that he really wanted. He picked up George and put him on his own pile of presents. Later that morning, when the whole family came into the living room together to see what Santa had brought, Scott's Mom immediately went over, picked up Curious George, placed him with the appropriate brother's pile, and said Santa had told her he was giving the Curious George to Scott's brother and it must have gotten mixed up. Like father, like son. Just like you can't trick the Tooth Fairy, you can't trick Santa.