Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank by Celia Rivenbark Page A

we went to the circus and you said I was five when I was really six so you could save five bucks on admission?
    ME : Well, that’s different. You were acting five that day.
    KID : It’s not fair. How can they change the rules?
    ME : Dunno, sweetie. You got two choices. Suck it up for a few months or gain twenty-three pounds by January first.
    KID : Was that a Krispy Kreme we just passed?
     
    Getting out of the car seat is a rite of passage that’s right up there with losing a tooth.
    It means that your baby’s growing up. I’ll never forgetwhen my daughter, then five, held her fist out to me, then opened it slowly.
    There, in the palm, was one perfect, pearly tooth that had inexplicably escaped its rightful home in her mouth.
    “The Tooth Fairy’s gonna come tonight!” Sophie squealed and danced around the kitchen clutching the tiny tooth while pointing to the hole where it used to be, bottom front and center.
    “Swell,” I said, finishing my coffee and dabbing my eyes. This was more in-your-face proof that my baby was growing up. I launched into a pathetic recitation of all the wonderful meals that little tooth had chomped on, the zillions of chicken nuggets, the pizzas, the broccoli and carrots. Yeah, okay, I made up those last two.
    Then it dawned on me. Trying to be cagey, I said, “Hmmm, by the way, how much does the Tooth Fairy pay for teeth these days, do you know?”
    “Well, Lucy got
seventy dollars.”
    Lucy’s my daughter’s rich friend. Every kid should have one. Lucy’s mother would never shriek, “I told you we ain’t paying for that shit” if she gave away all her Lifetouch school pictures, including the “Bonus Little Patriot” flag-embossed keychain before she even got home like my kid did.
    This was a Teachable Moment, though. It was time, once again, for a reminder of How Things Used to Be.
    “Darling, when Mommy was a little girl, I got a shiny quarter from the Tooth Fairy, right under my pillow.”
    “You’re kidding, right?”
    “Well, back in Mommy’s day, that was about half of what you’d need to buy the latest forty-five from Creedence Clearwater Revival.”
    “Huh?”
    “CCR. You know, ‘Bad Moon Rising’?”
    “Were they better than Maroon Five?”
    “Uh. Well, actually, no.”
    Later that day, I decided to poll the mommies on how much the Tooth Fairy brings.
    Most said between five and ten bucks for a first tooth. I decided the tooth fairy would bring five dollars and a disclaimer that all future teeth would bring one dollar.
    “What’s a disclaimer?” my daughter asked, reading the letter the next morning.
    “Well, it’s like those things at the bottom of ads for prescription drugs that tell you in little print that there’s a halfway decent chance that if you take the pill, it’ll cure you but you’ll also get excessive ear hair and a craving to eat dirt.”
    “Oh.”
    Later, I discovered there’s no pleasing the mommies. One said five bucks was ridiculously high; another said she wouldn’t consider giving less than twenty dollars for a First Tooth. But she’s the one who dressed as the fairy and made little fairy dust footprints on her daughter’s carpet so we all know she’s a nut job, right?
    Having an only child means that we get only one chance to do it right. There isn’t going to be a do-over, and there’s always some well-meaning person to point that out.
    The perky hostess at the family-friendly restaurant looked at our little party of three, still wearing church clothes and thinking only of cinnamon pancakes.
    “Just one child?” she asked, digging into a basket for crayons and a kiddie menu containing enough activities for a cross-country drive.
    “Well, yes,” said my husband, a trifle defensively. “Of course, there are days when she
seems
like more than one, but, no, it’s just one. I mean we were kind of late getting started, if you know what I mean, and we’re not getting any younger and so we just decided—”
    “Oh, for