halfgeek.codes

Kiddo has been advancing in so many ways this school year — academically, she's taken off like a rocket, with A's in three of her classes. We've seen some indications of her success when she's talked to us about the things she's learning. The important differentiator here is that she's LEARNING the material, and she's reaching out and getting help with material that gives her trouble.

She's also advancing socially — making friends, hanging out with them (a group!), and navigating around the pitfalls of middle school social networking.

She's also becoming more technologically aware by having responsibility for a laptop and using it to complete assignments.

So I'm having trouble understanding how, in the midst of all of these advancements, she still believes in Santa and the Tooth Fairy?

I think it's our fault, as her parents. Because we've done so well in perpetuating those myths that she's a wholesale believer despite the pace at which everything else in her life is maturing.

Santa Claus

In a previous life, Laurel worked for a local economic development agency. Part of her responsibilities as Director of Events was to organize every last detail of seasonal parades. As you can imagine, she got to know a lot of people and civic organizations pretty well — including the man who was hired to play Santa in the Christmas parade.

It was the holiday season (prior to Christmas) and kiddo was four when she and Laurel were at the mall doing some shopping. Laurel's Santa normally didn't work the mall, but he was there on this occasion and walking toward the break room when he spied Laurel and Kiddo. He spoke up and greeted Laurel by name, and blew. Kiddo's. Mind.

I don't know if Santa ever realized the great gift he'd given Laurel that day. His greeting sparked a conversation between Kiddo and Laurel that somehow culminated in Kiddo becoming absolutely convinced that Santa was always watching, that mommy had a DEMONSTRATED direct connection to Santa, and that she could email him at any time for any reason. (E-mailing Santa was a device of kiddo's design, by the way — one night, Laurel was up late doing some work, which included sending some e-mails. Kiddo, still awake in her bedroom, asked her if she was e-mailing (*insert dramatic pause*) Santa — perhaps she was afraid she'd make the naughty list for not being asleep yet!) This gave rise to more conversations than I could count that ended up with Laurel asking, "Do you want me to e-mail Santa?"

Portable North Pole

At about the same time, Laurel caught onto an absolute GEM of a gimmick: The Portable North Pole console. It's a service — that still exists today — whereby you can enter your child's name and upload a couple of photos, and Santa will send special video messages for you and your child. You could use these videos as a corrective device, by entering in the form that your child has been naughty and selecting a reason why — the video will then show Santa finding your kid on his naughty list and encouring him or her to improve before Christmas. Your child is "identified" by his or her book — Santa has a book for every child — and the photos you send in appear in the "book." I recall uploading photos of Kiddo's room (we didn't upload photos of Kiddo; we uploaded images of things familiar to kiddo instead), and seeing her just EXPLODE when she saw a pic of her room in Santa's book. You could even add the names of your child's friends, so your kid's "book" appears next to those of the friends. We used PNP with great success.

Laurel took a few extra steps to ensure the myth of Santa was preserved, though also subtly introduced the notion that Santa was not the only gift giver. The best example I can offer: gifts from Santa were always wrapped in a super secret wrapping paper. This was absolute brilliance on Laurel's part, because Kiddo could be aware of the presence of holiday wrapping paper in the home, and would receive gifts from specific people in addition to Santa. But the roll of paper Santa used was never seen, so it was like Santa wrapped those gifts someplace outside of the home. This tack was also important, I think, because it introduced Kiddo to the concept of people giving gifts to each other over the holidays; not all gifts come from Santa.

The Tooth Fairy

The Tooth Fairy has always given kiddo a golden dollar for every tooth she's lost. (When I was a kid, market value in our house was $0.25.) I thought the Sacagawea dollar was a great choice for dental currency because (1) it's golden color really stands out (2) it's actual legal tender (3) rarely circulated (meaning the chances of her getting a Sacagawea dollar on the economy is low) and (4) it's valued at $1.

The Tooth Fairy has also always written kiddo a nice letter, either hand-written or printed in an elegant font (thank you, Microsoft Word!).

There has never been a time she didn't receive a golden coin paired with a nice letter — though this year, we changed things up a little. More on that in a bit.

Tinkerbell

Our relationship with The Tooth Fairy was sort of pushed to an extreme a few years ago. Kiddo had lost a tooth just before we went on vacation to Disney, and in a letter, the Tooth Fairy had told kiddo that she and Tinkerbell were good friends, and that she'd talk to Tink about our upcoming visit.

Upon check-in at Disney, we asked the staff where we might find a gift shop that had little Tinkerbell-oriented gifts, and explained the whole Tooth Fairy-Tinkerbell connection. The front desk staff told us they'd take care of it (that was so nice!), and wow did they — when we got back to the room that evening, waiting on the kitchen island was ALL SORTS of goodies for kiddo: a Tinkerbell mug filled with little toys and fun confetti, perhaps a small stuffed animal too; little pins and lanyards and things. They. Completely. Hooked. Us. Up! We thanked them again and again and again.

A couple of days later we were walking around EPCOT and saw that Tinkerbell was making an appearance at one of the exhibits — and kiddo was anxious to thank her. I got busy downloading an app I could use to draw very large text on my phone screen, and used it to guide Tinkerbell as best I could.

First I drew Kiddo's name in large letters and positioned myself behind Kiddo so when we walked upon the stage, Tink could read her name. She took the cue beautifully and greeted kiddo by name and very enthusiastically. Next, I wrote "lost a tooth" or "Tooth Fairy sent her" or something like that and she picked right up on that, too, with Kiddo very happily filling in the gaps. It was about perfect. Kiddo left feeling kinda star-struck. I've always wanted to thank that young actress for her awesome assistance that day. I should send this story to Disney World.

Sunday's Tooth

Fast-forward to this past Sunday. Kiddo pulled out a molar, and insisted she put it under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy. The notion completely blew me away — just how is it she is learning about sex and science and what assholes adolscents can be, but still believes in the tooth fairy?

It was 10:30 at night. My printer is still packed. She's been using her phone a lot more lately — texting has really become a thing — maybe we do this letter electronically?

I set to work making changes to my website mailer code. I modified the development environment code to make the sender address read "tf@toothfairy.com," and sent myself a few test messages.

But sending an e-mail wouldn't be enough. First off, I still had the problem of the actual tooth-for-money swap; and she's now sleeping with the dogs in her room. We've been living here for three weeks now; I was praying the big dog in particular, who is hard of hearing and going blind, wouldn't attack me in the dark. Very fortunately, he slept through the whole thing, and I made it out with the tooth and the phone.

Laurel set to work configuring the phone for the e-mail account Kiddo never knew she had, and configuring the notifications to make the incoming message appear — and stay — on the lock screen, so kiddo couldn't miss it.

Then I got to thinking about creating contact information for the Tooth Fairy, so Kiddo would see "The Tooth Fairy" and an image as the sender instead of deciphering an e-mail address. I got the new contact AirDropped onto kiddo's unit, then got back onto my laptop and sent a test message. Everything went perfectly, so we deleted the test, turned off the phone, resent the message, and planted the phone back in kiddo's room.

On Monday morning, kiddo noted that she woke up with the coin in her hand, but found no letter. When I dropped her off at school, I reminded her the Tooth Fairy had never not left her a letter of some kind. I was confident she'd find it as school was letting out, but she didn't mention it when I picked her up in the afternoon. When Laurel asked about it later, Kiddo only casually responded that the Tooth Fairy had sent her "a note on her phone." — it was another example of her classic underwhelming response to something we worked so hard for.

Exit Strategy

Where we anticipate trouble with all of this is at school -- or, more directly, with her friends at school. I just don't want to see Kiddo come home deflated after her entire class ganged up on her on Santa or the Tooth Fairy. And right now, we're a little more concerned about the Tooth Fairy because the Tooth Fairy is a contact in her phone! I can guarantee it'll be a bad day if one of her friends sees that. This is the kind of thing that makes an exit strategy so important. (I never in a million years would have thought I'd be using a term like "exit strategy" to describe how to escort Kiddo away from her childhood.)

Laurel and I have discussed how to proceed. Kiddo has an orthadontist appointment in the next few weeks — Laurel's going to use the opporutnity to determine how many teeth Kiddo has left to lose, and we'll put together a plan for how The Tooth Fairy will say goodbye. At the moment, it'll probably be an e-mail message on the occasion of the loss of her final tooth, assuming that happens sometime relatively soon.

Santa's gonna be a tougher nut to crack. Every holiday season we very timidly test Kiddo's waters to figure out where she is on the scale of Santa Reality. Particularly over the past couple of years, we've braced ourselves for the result. She's heard other kids saying that Santa isn't real... and she's asked mommy straight out. Mommy's response was perhaps imperceptably subtle.

I guess I just thought that kids figure this stuff out for themselves, and parents just sort of abruptly learn that their child doesn't believe in it anymore. The parents breathe a sigh of relief and life moves on. And maybe that can happen for us. But when I was growing up, kids didn't have mobile phones with contact information for the Tooth Fairy, or probably didn't grow up believing their mothers had a Wifi hotline to Santa.

Straight Up Now, Tell Me

Of course, we have available the direct option of just telling her the truth. Reading that sentence aloud nearly made me cry; it makes me feel like I'd be killing something pure and beautiful. This is a real dilemma, as silly as it may sound. On the one hand, I'd like the convenience of Kiddo just learning it someplace. On the other hand, I don't want her to suffer for that lesson — I don't want her to be ridiculed by friends, and I couldn't bear for her stepbrother to break her heart yet again. I feel pretty safe in saying Laurel and I would much rather have some control over how the news is delivered, and have some influence in how it is received, than to risk an event within especially her budding social network.

Epilogue

I told Laurel that I felt we should talk with Kiddo about the Tooth Fairy in particular, for some of the reasons I gave above.

Later in the afternoon, after Kiddo got home from school, we had an opportunity to talk a bit about the whole Tooth Fairy thing. She volunteered that she didn't believe in the Tooth Fairy; she'd stopped believing last year. "I had a fishy feeling," she said. I then explained the sequence of Sunday night's events to her, and also explained that we did it because we thought she really believed in it, and didn't want to disappoint her. She wasn't angry or upset at all.