Children Just Don't Understand

It seems like every person I've ever known who has a screwed-up life, be they my own friends or celebrities or whatever, always blames their messed-up life on their parents. Their parents didn't show them enough love, didn't take them to enough ballgames, didn't buy them enough popcorn at the ballgames that they did take them too, and so on. I wonder how many things these parents did for these nasty kids out of pure love, that they never even knew about or understood.

The reason I wonder is because my daughter lost her tooth yesterday. Back when my oldest son lost his first tooth, my wife, in a fit of spontaneity, gave him not only a dollar for the tooth, but also a box of Junior Mints. This established a precedent for our children. From then on, they would wonder what the heck happened to the Tooth Fairy, and why wasn't she doing what she's always done if they only got a dollar and no candy. So, in an effort to help our children's youth last as long as it can, we've always given both a dollar and some kind of candy treat. (Why the Tooth Fairy is giving candy is a topic for discussion all on it's own. Shouldn't she be promoting good oral health, which eating candy is not a part of? Or maybe it's a nefarious purpose. She wants the kids to lose more teeth, so she can wallpaper her living room with them, or whatever Tooth Fairies do with these teeth they collect).

Anyway, I was editing on the podcast last night. I was determined to get it done before I went to bed. I'm heading out for vacation at the end of the week, so I was running out of time. I ran out of gas somewhere around 1am, but I was still a ways from being done. I kept at it, because I was determined, and finally, bleary-eyed and utterly wasted, I finished editing at 2am. I went to my bedroom, undressed, and just as I was about to hop in bed, I realized that I hadn't taken care of Tooth Fairy duty. I put my clothes back on, and bleary-eyed and utterly wasted, I drove to the 24hr gas station to get her the candy that was expected to come from Fairyland.

I hope, someday, when she thinks it's cool to hate her dad and blame all her ills in life on me, she thinks about things like this, and understands just how much she is and was loved.

Seeing her face first thing in the morning as she marched into our bedroom at 7am to show us what the Tooth Fairy had brought made it all worth it, though. I only wish I hadn't been too tired to open my eyes for more than a split second to look before falling back into a fitful slumber.