I first told my daughter that tooth fairies fly around looking for clean, healthy teeth to build a toothy castle in exchange for a shiny gold coin under the pillow.
The #teachermama in me couldn't resist but use this little tooth-losing event to guide her write a little note to the tooth fairy - "what an opportunity for letter writing!"... and so I thought.
Here's her note by the way:
Cute right?
That night, I went to check on my daughter at 12:30am (which was already very late) when it suddenly dawned on me that not only do I need to remove her tooth and letter under her pillow, I now need to write her a response from the tooth fairy!
So I hurriedly rummaged through our art and craft drawers, trying to look for stickers and markers that she haven't seen before and half an hour later at 1am, I produced the following:
I thought I did a pretty good job and placed it in an envelope lying around.
The next morning, my daughter excitedly bounced into my room and exclaimed that the tooth fairy visited her. She carefully examined the letter, the stickers, her name written with flowers all around and then...she notices the envelope.
Now my daughter is 6 years old and has just learned the foundations of reading, she also knows that I really liked our local stationery store with trendy Scandanavian designs called Kikki K.
She turned to the back of the envelope, sees the VERY small and VERY faint yellow logo, and says "The envelope says Kikki K".
Here's the envelope, talk about freakishly sharp eyes! Can you spot the Kikki K logo?
For a moment there I was speechless. For a moment there, I thought my cover was blown...
Before I could think of a response, my daughter promptly asked : " Does the tooth fairy shop at Kikki K as well?"
Stifling a giggle, I responded: " Uhhh, I think so?".
Four days later we were walking through the shopping centre, I well and truly thought she has forgotten about the tooth fairy, before she suddenly turned to me and said: " Oh, there is a Kikki K shop here!" (I must have taken her there with me too many times...)
"Can we ask if the shopkeepers have seen the tooth fairy?", she continued.
My eager husband answered: "Yes sure, your mama will take you".
I gave him a look and then looked at the face of my excited child and replied that, yes, of course I will take her.
We went into the Kikki K stationery shop, and quickly spotted a shop assistant.
I gave her a big smiled and asked "We were just wondering, whether the TOOTH FAIRY ever shops at the store? I ask, because my daughter recently received a letter from the tooth fairy with a Kikki K envelope..."
It took a few seconds for the confused retail assistant to register, before she quick-wittedly responded :" Well yes...", She leaned down and said to my daughter: "It's a bit of a secret. But between you and me, the tooth fairy does shop here from time to time."
She gave me a quick smile while a mouthed a big "Thank You!" to her.
You should have seen the face of my little girl, it was a mixture of elation and pure childhood innocence and joy. What a moment it was! And what length I went to considering I told the same girl that Santa Clause doesn't exist already...🎅
All of this because of the learning opportunity I wanted my daughter to have with writing...
What kind of every day learning opportunities do you provide your children? I hope this story brought you some childhood joy today.
This post wasn't sponsored by Kikki K, but in case you don't know the store, here it is: https://www.kikki-k.com/.