Due to some digestive issues, Moon went to see a GI specialist this week. The doctor gave him medication and ordered a series of tests. One of which required a stool sample. Ever since Peanut found out that Moon would, at some point, be crapping in a jar, he'd been like a kid on Christmas Eve. Peanut had been listening for the opening of the cupboard, asking each time I removed a container, "Is that for Moon to poop in?" He'd also been alert to Moon's bathroom behavior, trying to follow him in to the john each time in anticipation of the big event.
While the pooping was his main focus, Peanut's attention was drawn away from Moon's sphincter today by yet another exciting happening. The loss of his first tooth. It'd been hanging by a thread for weeks, but he refused to pull it out at home because he wanted to get the tooth keeper necklace they give to kids who lose their teeth at school. When I picked him up from class this afternoon, he proudly showed me the little tooth container hanging around his neck, and the newly empty space in his mouth.
"Are you going to put it under your pillow for the Tooth Fairy?" I asked him.
"No. I want to keep it," he insisted, adamantly.
"But, don't you want the Tooth Fairy to bring you money?"
"Nah. I'd rather just have my tooth."
"What are you going to do with a tooth?" I asked.
"I dunno. Just hang out with it I guess."
When bedtime rolled around, Peanut was in the process of weighing his Tooth Fairy options. While he was tantalized by the prospect of money and a visit from a magical creature in the middle of the night, he just really wanted to keep his tooth. Before Peanut could make a final decision and fall asleep, Moon put us all on notice that he had to crap. Having read online about best practices for catching clean stool samples (how's that for an oxymoron?), I ran upstairs with some saran wrap, and loosely draped it across the toilet seat. The process required a good bit of precision. Drape too taut, and Moon would end up with dirt ass. But too loose, and the log might slip into the toilet. Nerve wracking stuff.
Once the toilet was ready, I gave Moon the go-ahead for bombs away. The entire time he was in the bathroom, D. and I had to patrol outside to keep Peanut out. He was intrigued by the saran wrap, the plastic container, and most of all by the notion that we would be putting poop in the refrigerator. Seriously, the best day of Peanut's life.
While we were waiting for the good word from Moon, The Baby decided that he needed to nurse. Which meant that I was unavailable for sample collection and the chore would fall to D., thus making today perhaps the best day of my life, too. Though, I must admit, it was a little difficult for me to hand over control of the situation to D. (hmm...wonder where Moon got his anal retentiveness). Realistically, I know that D. is just as capable a parent as I am. Plus, I don't think you can screw up a stool sample. So, I hauled out my boob and left the crap work to D.
Not wanting to cheat Peanut out of his long anticipated experience, D. let him have a look at Moon's specimen. After getting a good look and uttering the proper degree of wonderous proclamations regarding its size, shape, and stinkiness, Peanut was satisfied with his first stool sample experience and back to worrying about his tooth. Worrying so seriously that he was in tears.
"Mom, I don't want her to take my tooth!"
"Then don't put it under your pillow," I tried to reason.
"But what if she steals it?"
"The tooth fairy isn't a thief."
"Yes she is. She's just going to come here, and she's going to see that my tooth isn't under my pillow, and she'll steal it AND not leave me any money."
"Look," I laid it out for him, "if you don't put it under your pillow, she won't take it."
"Mom, you don't know that!"
At a loss for any other way to explain to him that the Tooth Fairy wouldn't steal his tooth, I suggested we leave a note under his pillow. Peanut dictated, I wrote:
"Dear Tooth Fairy,
Please do NOT take my tooth. I want to keep it. But, if you want to leave me some money anyway, that would be cool. Love, Peanut. P.S. Do NOT take my tooth!"
The note finally calmed his fears and, tooth hidden in drawer, poop stashed in fridge, both boys drifted off to sleep.
In the morning, much to everyone's surprise, both Peanut and Moon found they had been visited by magical beings. Peanut had five one dollar bills tucked beneath his pillow, and his tooth still safely tucked away. And Moon found a dollar wrapped in a note in the bathroom:
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We believe in the Poop Fairy.
Don't you?
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