BASIC MATH

Thing Two got $20 dollars from the tooth fairy last Monday night (and no, Mom hadn't been drinking wine before bed!)

However, right now it happens to be wine-thirty while Mom is blogging, so let's take a minute and consider this graph about the cost of raising a child from birth to age 18.

And for those of you who know me well, you know that math just isn't my thing.  However, even I can read this chart and know those are some big numbers.  OMG! and I have how many kids?  It's very clear that the cost of raising a child is increasing (evident by the angry red line going up like the giant hill on one of my workouts.)

So it doesn't really make sense (or in this case: cents) when CNN reports that the Tooth Fairy is pinching penny's in this sagging economy.  The survey found that the going rate for a single tooth has seen a 40-cent decline this year: from $3.00 to $2.60!

Because, at our home the tooth fairy is going broke! 

It used to be that in our country farm house, in the dead of night (or at least shortly after 8 pm),  the tooth fairy left $2.00 per tooth.  This seemed like a reasonable reward for a lost tooth, since it was plenty for a child of 10 years of age to be excited about and yet it wasn't enough to break the bank.  Then, for some reason that is a little foggy right now, the old Gal with the silvery wings left two bills and a gold Sacajawea coin.  This began the reign of the "two bills and one gold coin tradition" that seemed harmless at the time until the evenings when a tooth fell out unexpectedly and the search was on for the frantic Fairy to find a dollar coin in the couch cushions, car ash trays and even Stud Boy's wallet.

Why then, in this economy, is Thing Two holding a crisp $20 from the tooth fairy?

Here is why...

But wait!  There's more...

So if you are counting gaping holes...that's six!

So let's do the math, Mommy style:

6 teeth in 5 treasure boxes divided by 45 minutes in a dentists chair, as multiple tears stream down the face of a very brave 10 year old = equals the amount of money this mother would pay to relieve the pain and suffering of her youngest child!  While the answer is 10 million dollars or more, the "Tooth Fairy" settled on $3.00 x 6 teeth = $18.00 rounded up to $20.00 + a Wendy's Frosty, a ton of sympathy and great big hugs!

All the graph's, charts, and surveys cannot begin to convey the true cost of a child because it just doesn't even matter.  You see, having children makes me the richest person in the world.

Trick or Treat Smell My Feet...

Halloween used to rock! I loved, loved, loved making costumes and dressing up my kids for the school parades and then going to parties and dragging them out on a chilly and rainy night, trick or treating until they whined that they were cold and tired of walking and just wanted to go home. 

Gone are those days when I could dress them in whatever I wanted, like a sweet princess type dress on Darling Daughter, or matching costumes on Thing One and Thing Two.  Gone are the school Halloween parades, even.   WTH?

Then there was Stud Boy and his darn food allergies which made Halloween tricky, but it also meant we could legitimately eat all his candy!  We just had to pay him a nickle a piece.  But now that the kids are older, this favorite Holiday of mine has lost a whole lot of it's appeal.  Rats!

I remember the years I spent weeks and weeks making costumes for Thing One and Thing Two dressing them up as Captain Hook and Peter Pan.   They were so freakin' cute!  Really adorable! And the year that Darling Daughter was excited about putting on a dress to be a tooth fairy and Stud Boy was psyched to be a Pokemon card.  I was able to craft and sew into the wee hours of the night before Halloween until my fingers were numb. Now, however, I need to beg my children to even dress up.  I need to pull out all the bins of costumes and coax them into at least consider wearing something.  "I will make you anything you want to be" I promise.  Only to be met with, "Do we even have to dress up, Mom".  WTH?  Ummmm yes kiddies, if  you want candy you need to dress up.  Alarmingly they replied, "Not really sure we even want to trick or treat this year, Mom".  WHAT?  No candy?  No mini Kit Kat bars, or Dum Dums?  No miniature Milk Duds for me to sneak from Halloween bags and have stick to my molars as I try and scarf them down while my kids aren't looking.  NO WAY!  I didn't birth four kids to be cheated out of Halloween before it's time.  And frankly, it's not time!  So pick a costume and get out there and don't come back until you find me a Mallo Cup! Just saying...

This year my Darling Daughter is 13 years old and it's all about the Slutbagwhore (as I like to call it) costume for girls of any age, really.  I caved in and agreed to some inappropriate skirt, however she had to wear leggings on under it and a turtle neck under the low cut tank top.  Man does Mom ever take the fun out of the teenage years!

Thing One and Thing Two wanted to be the "Bandanna Brothers".  What?  I don't know what that means and I wasn't terribly impressed with their creativity and of course I wanted to make entire costumes out of bandanna's for them or convince them to be pirates or robots or super heroes,  but basically I think they just wanted to look all "gangsta like".  So again, I caved and got some bandanna's and they tied them on to appease me and called it a "costume".  Ugh.

However, this year, since Stud Boy was in Boston having a nifty reaction to a piece of candy and Darling Daughter was inviting some boy to trick or treat with us as she attempted her "sexy" costume and the boys settled on some lamo last minute, "I guess we have to wear something" costume.  I decided I wouldn't hinge my Halloween Happiness on any of them and dress up myself.  So dress up I did!

Wearing the wedding dress I was saving for Darling Daughter that she declared, "I'm sorry Mom, but that is hideous" - I rocked out the Zombie Bride look for Halloween this year.  Unfortunately, there wasn't a Mallo Cup in sight.