Fairy Dust

I thought he'd gone to bed. I was opening a sandwich Stan bought me at the deli down the street for my dinner when I heard his little feet coming down the steps and then he stood across the kitchen island from me, held a tiny red plastic box in his little fingers and said, "Mom, how come you have my tooth in your bedroom?"

Sean, how come you were snooping in my bedroom?

"I found it that day you asked me to go get your red wallet." Anyway, he wanted an answer. He was wearing a grin. He clicked the box open and closed, peeking in at his last tooth. I leaned down at his eye level. What do you think is going on here, Sean? Hm? I remembered having a similar conversation with Seth around 13 years ago. He'd asked me about Santa and he was serious. He didn't want no jive. I told him straight. He didn't care, as long as someone took the Santa role Seth didn't care if it was a jolly fat man or a 31 year old woman hoeing garden soil in the back yard.
Sean felt much the same and he'd suspected that it was I who was she but now he wanted to see his old teeth so I took him up to my little trinket cabinet and let him start looking.
He found my vial of fairy dust. I'd never sprinkled fairy dust on his pillow, sadly. A third child is lucky if the tooth fairy remembers to leave a couple bucks on the third day of: "Mom! The tooth fairy forgot to come AGAIN! Sheesh! What's wrong with this woman? I tried under the pillow...I tried on the window sill in the red box...I tried under my pillow in the red box..."

"Could you sprinkle fairy dust on my pillow next time?"

He could now account for 5 of his teeth but he tells me he's lost 8. He went back in opening boxes of pins, tiny shells, buttons...."I have a feeling," he said, "that you've hidden my other teeth." I have a feeling I have no idea where those three teeth are.

He discovered my wedding necklace and childhood bracelet. "How come you don't wear this?" I wore it on my wedding day. "But how come you don't wear it every other day?"
I don't wear my wedding necklace. I don't know where your teeth are. I can't imagine that you've lost 8 already. I don't remember who gave me my childhood bracelet. I don't know from which beach that tiny box of tiny shells came.

I don't sprinkle fairy dust anymore.