Yep, my kids are messing with me. I’m not 100% sure of that, but I’m getting suspicious. First, if you are listening or reading this newsletter with your kids, be warned there are spoilers coming up. I’ll give you a moment to distract them into doing something else. While you do that, since my Dad usually listens each week and the newsletter today happens to fall on his birthday, Happy Birthday, Dad. Thanks for letting your kids mess with you for all of these years.

Anyways. Maybe I’m wrong, but I am pretty sure my kids are messing with me. Maddy lost a tooth the other day. That sucker hung on for days and days longer than it should have, but it finally fell out late one afternoon. So that made it time for a visit from the tooth fairy, Penelope.

Maddy has taken to writing full-blown letters to Penelope with all manner of questions about the fairy world. This time, it was a front and back letter with questions about flying and whether or not Penelope could fix Maddy’s broken magic wand. With each tooth, the questions are becoming detailed in the extreme and leaving us, as Penelope’s ghost-writers, at a little bit of a loss for responses. Do we have to write back an equally long set of answers? What level of detail is required?

And that’s when it occurred to me that it might be a test. Does she know . . . you know, but think that we don’t know that she knows? Is she continuing to escalate the questions in an effort to see how far we will take it? No, I’m being cynical, aren’t I? My daughter is basking in the magic of youth, while I’m mired in the cynicism of adulthood.

Don’t worry, Maddy received a lovely and lengthy letter from Penelope expressing her disappointment at not being able to share the magic of flight with Maddy, because to give away those secrets is forbidden for tooth fairies. And Maddy was told that while wands aren’t repairable, she is sure that Maddy will find a new one soon.

Questions answered, magic maintained . . . Maybe my kids are messing with me. That’s ok, I’ll let them, because I need to bask in magic a little, too.