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Dear Tooth Fairy, We Cool?

1/27/2012

Man, I have really been struggling this month with a lack of motivation.  Not just motivation to sit down and blog, but motivation to do much of anything except eat chips and play Skyrim.  I can't blame it on winter doldrums, since it's pretty consistently been in the 70s, and I can't blame it on a lack of things that need to be done, since there are still three children who live in my house.  Gotta shake it off.

One thing that I've kept doing, though, is going to All Saints every Wednesday to volunteer with the chess club there.  Sometimes Blake brings his lunch to the library, and we'll eat together.  While I was there this week, he suddenly gasped and looked down at his food, and then pointed out to me the tooth that had popped out when he took a bite, and which was sitting right on top.  He was excited because he knows, after losing six other teeth, that a visit from the tooth fairy means fifty cents.  I was excited because I didn't have to pull it out myself.

The nurse at All Saints keeps a stash of little plastic treasure chests for kids to put their teeth into to make sure that they get home safely, and Blake was really eager to go get one.
We have this little tooth pillow that used to be mine when I was a kid.  He put his tooth into it, went to bed, and his unmotivated dad completely forgot about it until the next morning.

"My tooth is still here!"
"Ooohhh... You know what?  Um...  I forgot to let the Tooth Fairy know."
"She doesn't just know?"
"Well, um, they give you her email address once you become a parent, and you're supposed to let her know.  I'll be sure she gets the message today."

I say these things, and then think that surely, SURELY, he must be on to the game, and is only playing along because he knows he gets money out of it.  But last night convinced me that Blake is still a true believer.

It was time for bed, and I was trying to get him to follow me into his room, knowing that Jack wouldn't get into bed until he saw Blake do the same thing.  Blake kept hanging back by the chair where his coat and school bag were, digging around his coat pocket.

"What are you doing?"
"I just need to check my coat pocket real quick!"

He walked into his room with a slip of paper hidden in his hands, held close to his body where he thought I wouldn't see it.  I asked him what it was, and he told me it was nothing.

"Well, what's written on it?"
And then he just dissolved into sobs and tears.
"I took the tooth back to school to show my friends, and I lost it there, but I knew that you were going to send a note to the Tooth Fairy today, and I didn't want her to think that I was lying about losing a tooth!"

Here's what the paper said:

I disguised my handwriting the best I could, wrote "I Love You" on it, and tucked it back into the tooth pillow along with two quarters after he was asleep.
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Looking Forward, Looking Back

1/01/2012

Some trivia to start out your 2012 with: the month of January is actually named after actress January Jones, who plays Betty Draper on AMC's hit series Mad Men.  For real!

I can't believe you went and double-checked me on Wikipedia!  OK, it's actually named for Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions.  He has two faces, one to look forward, and one to look back.  Because it gives me an easy, lazy post to start the year with, I'm going to take a look back at Look What Danny Made! in 2011, and a look forward at some of what I've got in mind for 2012.

So, things that happened in 2011:
I'm looking back at that list right now, and I'm going to have to go ahead and pat my own back a little bit.  2011 was neither my very best nor my very worst year, but it was the year when I decided to do things and I did them.  Sure, some of them were silly things like watching a whole bunch of movies, but I feel like I also managed to accomplish some really positive things, like the weight loss and the service.

I'm still firming up ideas for things to do this year.  There's going to be another Project Valentine, but it's going to be something entirely different this year.  I'm planning two movie projects, the conclusion of Project Horror and one TBA.  Project Gastronome is coming back in April, to see what other nations I can anger.  I'm also going to be doing the Marine Corps Fitness Test once a month between now and December, and reporting the results (and hopeful improvements) here.

But I'm also planning something that is going to be my biggest project EVER, not just on the blog, but in my life.  How big?  This one won't take a month, it's going to unfold over the next several years.  I've shared the details of it with a very few people already, but I need to get a few more details in place before I'm ready to unveil it here.  I'll give you the name: Project Summit.

Happy New Year, friends.  What are you going to do this year?