The Tooth Fairy is coming tonight!
 

My daughter was so excited to find a gap in her teeth that it took a moment for her to realize that she had no idea when it happened.

She started to cry and said she had to write a letter to the Tooth Fairy. But she got excited again and started telling her little brother that this means she's growing up.

She was eating a slice of pizza just before she noticed the missing tooth. I had already told her how my first lost tooth fell into a pond while I was fishing with my father, but everything worked out - just in case something like this happened.

I'm a little disappointed. I wanted to save her tooth. But I'm not disappointed enough to go looking for it when it, um, reemerges.

Drove my kids 250 km to see glow worms and some rainforest but they were more excited by watching the dvds they bought from home in the holiday unit.

They were briefly excited by the sight of the Milky Way in the clear country sky but that could have been because it reminded them of a scene in Madagascar :rolleyes:.

My son has this bedtime thing where he gives his mum various animal kisses. These consist of preceding a kiss with whatever noise the animal might make. He was a bit stumped though when he tried to do a giraffe kiss. After thinking for a minute about what noise they make he sat up as tall as he could and said "giraffe" in his gruffest voice.

My daughter's kindergarten class ends with a short recess. She often asks to play "just a little longer". Yesterday, when I told her it was time to leave, she begged for "just three more minutes" but I said no because she'd already had five. She ran away and hid.

I trudged through the snow with my three year old son, eventually cornering my daughter and taking her by the hand. She began screaming that she needed to say goodbye to her friends. They were between us and the gate, so I told her we would say goodbye on the way out.

She tried to pull her hand free, but I said that she had to hold my hand because she'd already run away and we were on our way to the parking lot, where holding hands was a rule. She began crying that she needed to fix her glove. I let go of her hand, and she pulled it inside her sleeve.

I took her arm, pulled her hand out of her sleeve, and led her toward the gate. She said she still needed to fix her glove, but I wasn't going to fall for that again. She was yelling that she wanted to play, that she hadn't said goodbye to all her friends, that her glove felt funny... desperately trying to delay the inevitable. I warned her that she was going to be punished if she didn't stop.

Her teacher asked if I needed help. "No, she just doesn't want to go home." I told my daughter that she would see her friends tomorrow then said goodbye to her teacher. By now my son was getting agitated.

I could have (and have in the past) picked them up and carried them under each arm like wailing, hiccuping sacks of potatoes, but I prefer to appear aggrieved rather than unhinged, so I led them to my car without losing my patience or raising my voice - even while my daughter was screaming "You've turned this into the worst day of my life!"

Buckling the unhappy children was a minor wresting match. I persevered, but my daughter refused to admit defeat. As I drove home, she yelled, she cried, she called me mean and unfair. I told her that she would be going into Time Out when we got home and warned her that it would be for the rest of the evening if she didn't behave.

She didn't behave. I finally yelled. I told her that she was not to speak until we were home or I would confiscate her Barbie dolls.

When we got home, I sent her to her room. On the way, she flung her coat, boot, and gloves willy-nilly around the house as the lull in her tantrum ended. There were stomping feet, slamming doors, and screams.

I told her to pick up what she had thrown to the floor, then told her to clean her room. Apparently, that is the worst punishment ever. I had to remind her that she was allowed to leave her room for dinner and potty breaks.

I left her in her room and went to balance the checkbook - because I had not yet suffered enough. About an hour later, I went to check on her. She had made significant progress despite taking a break to watch Charlie Chaplin's "The Kid" on the portable DVD player that I hadn't thought to take away until she was finished picking up her toys.

I told her I she was doing a good job. She told me she had one more thing to show me. It was a letter she had written to me.

"Dear
DaDDY
I ALL
ReDy
Know
that
you
Do'Nt Love ME"

...signed with a little heart, then her name.

She fell against me, sobbing sad, not angry, tears. I held her tight and told her that I will always love her, no matter what.

Then I drank some hot chocolate.

As the parent of three, grandparent of seven, married to a retired kindergarten teacher, I can say (FWIW from a stranger) that you did all the right things. Kudos.

It's nice to hear validation from a voice of experience. I have walked a mile in the shoes of that frantic mother we've all seen in the supermarket, and I am girding myself for the many more miles ahead.

One of my daughters has twin boys (fraternal, not identical). When they were in their terrible 2s (now 11), one of them was given to tantrums and had one when my wife (after a meal with us) was putting on his snow suit to go home. Her method (and advice to the daughter) was not to listen, not to interact, to ignore the tantrum and just put on the snow suit, which my wife, bigger than a 2-year old, proceeded to do, ignoring all protests. On another occasion, while we were barbecuing some burgers, he had a snit and wasn't going to eat. His father simply picked him up, carried him kicking and squirming to his bedroom, put him in there with warnings not to return to the table, and we ate a nice meal without him. That methodology has worked very well. The boy soon outgrew the tantrums which, after all, were ignored completely except that both parents were cool after the fact. Many years before, that strategy worked on the parents of these kids, and it will work for you too.

Last night, despite being warned about the consequences, my daughter thought it would be funny to eat the bubbles in her bath. Today, well… she is less amused by herself.

Ahh, the learning curve of life. In my view it does no harm for kids to discover some of these little truths themselves: two lessons here; don't eat soap, and your parents weren't lying about the effects of eating soap.

It reminds me of the day I learned that the secret stash of chocolate my mother denied existed was, in fact, beef bullion. Bleah.

I'm sure my children will have eaten their peck of dirt long before they die. It's good for the immune system.

My brother ate a square of ExLax at my grandmother's house once (believing it was chocolate). The results were predictable. My dad admitted that he as a kid had eaten a whole bunch of grapes and ended up impacting his bowel with grape skins. My son ate a bright red button once. Made it through in a very poor state of repair.

When I make a pot of soup I make an extra pot with a concentrated Jalapeno concoction so I can spice up my bowl. One day over dinner my daughter became quite distressed and couldn't explain what was wrong. It wasn't until she admitted sneaking a spoonful from my bowl that I realised what the problem was. At least she knows what spicy means now.

"I'm all dirty" my three year old son complained in the bathtub today. "You got soap on me."

My son has decided his favourite topping for toast is green klumpf. Thankfully it's invisible and tastes a lot like plain margarine.

i was on a plane with my kids - coming in to land and my ears started to pop. I saw my eldest rub her ear - I asked her "do your ears hurt?". She replied "No", then looked up at me, tugged down on the lobe of one of them and said "Except when I do this".

I love my son's resilience. Yesterday he was lying on the couch with a 39ºC temperature, running nose, watery eyes and barky cough and he was still able to do a boppy head dance when his favourite ABC song came on.

Recently, my almost 4 year old son wanted me to guess which hand held a penny. He held out two chubby fists and said "Click to choose."

That's funny. My son holds up these imaginary bits of jigsaw puzzle and asks me to click and drag them into their imaginary place.

This morning, my daughter came up with a scheme to keep me from spoiling the surprise and opening the package containing my Father's Day present, which will arrive quite early and while my wife is at work.

"Don't worry" she told my wife, "I'll tell him it's your new poison ivy collection."