Shirking

“Mom, Mom, the tooth fairy did not come!”

I, in my pre-coffee, just waking up state, exclaimed, “Aw, crumb.” I paused to figure out exactly how much of a whopper I wanted to tell. “I’m sure she’ll come tonight, I’ll bet there was too much noise downstairs for her to come last night.”

“Oh, okay. You need to go to bed early so there will not be so much noise tonight, Mom. You and Papa.”

“Yes, Marcus.”

I am such a horrible mother. Between the excitement of adopting Heather from Spay/Neuter, Inc. and bearings going bad in a U-joint (“Dear, is it really supposed to sound like something’s dying under the car?”) and giving Franklin (the other cat) a bath and generally riding herd on the kids, making the crucial substitution of money for tooth had completely slipped my mind.

It doesn’t help that Matthew, now that he is awake, is sitting next to me smirking and saying, “Bad Jennifer! Bad!”.