Little White Lies

Sometimes, as a mother, I feel like such a fraud. My kids will ask me, over the dinner table, "Are vampires real, mummy?" And I have to respond, "of course they're not," at the same time trying to remember I must put a pound under his pillow before I go to bed, so he believes the Tooth Fairy has been.

And Santa. He's real too, obviously.

As of September I will start reminding them that his 'helpers' are out watching to see if they've been naughty or nice. Santa is great blackmail material. However, it's not so great when I nag the little darlings to treat the PlayStation 3 nicely because Mummy can't afford to buy a new one, my eight-year-old kindly reminds me I didn't buy the first one.

"Santa did," he says smugly.

Humph! "Well, actually..." I have to stop myself and get on with the dinner, muttering under my breath before breaking the parenting code.

They've asked if Harry Potter is real. Ha! I can do that one. "No, sweetheart, he's a fictional character in a book." And so are vampires... I must remember that when I get asked it again! Books are the answer. They're all fictional characters - of course, which they are - except The Tooth Fairy and Santa.

Tooth Fairy!

Ben lost his first tooth yesterday.  I have to document this.  I don't tend to find time for a diary, my blog has become the next best thing.

Random Picture Of Ben - He Has All His Teeth Here

I couldn't get a decent gappy picture though. 

The going rate around school was £1 so we thought we better do the same - though what is wrong with 50p for a tooth?  In my day (now I sound old) it was 10p.  My mum always tells the story how she didn't have one, so chucked two 5ps (that's the half shilling size, too) underneath my brother's pillow and they clinked together and he was like, "What was that?"

"Um, don't know, just go to sleep!"

This morning, pleased that she'd been, Ben put his prize in his money box, saving for a toy quad bike.  At first we thought he meant a real one (over my dead body!) but he must have realised he'd need a lot of teeth!  Phew!

At least he didn't even mention wanting to spend it on sweets - though that is something we haven't encouraged, so is a good thing - right?  I mean, there's an element of irony in buying sweets with the money the tooth fairy has given you, don't you think?

Hubby was saying that a guy at work had given £5 a tooth - was he mad? Twenty teeth later he's dished out £100 - I'll stick to the £1 thank you.

Now I have some writing time, so I must go write.  I need to get The Wedding Favour finished (almost there) so I can concentrate on some short stories and articles, and hope/pray/wish they get published.  So where's my fairy god mother ...?