Tooth Fairy troubles

Ohhh how my heart suddenly ached this morning on the way to school....my oldest, Jack, now 8, was riding in the front. Usually a no-no, we were running a little behind schedule (surprise, I know), so I didn't say anything when he jumped in the front. We were almost to school when he blurted out very non-chalantly, "Jackson says he thinks its your parents that leave money under your pillow when you lose a tooth. Is it?"

My heart just skipped a beat and then fell! But I caught myself almost laughing at the same time! I said that I didn't have anything to do with it. Jack said (very innocently and plainly), "Tell the truth. Is it you?" I said no - can you believe it? I LIED TO MY SON. I have preached at them that their parents will never lie to them. I told him to ask his dad if he thought it was me. Then very quietly I heard myself say no. As if I was answering him truthfully. He got out of the car, said goodbye and yelled something silly as he usually does, but nothing more about the tooth fairy.

So after dropping Cole off, I called Dan and told him. I was really - secretly - hoping for him to "support" me, you know, offer his shoulder to cry on?? Our baby is growing up, I don't want to tell him either, blah blah blah. But instead he said, very adamently, "You have to tell him to the truth! He asked you point blank!!" Then he went on to say that's how fights start with boys at school, he'll say his parents said they'll never lie to him (I DID say that...many times), and WHAM! It's on!

Thanks DAN!!! So I've felt guilt all day, even thinking about going to the school and pulling him out of class to tell him the truth, to apologize for LYING!!!!!! Then I find myself thinking, no, that's the very thing I preach against to Dan - you can't just take him out of school for something trivial and non-emergency like that, he has to be in school bell to bell, etc. Of course I came back to reality and didn't do that. But I kept sitting here thinking about it. His sweet face was so innocent but his eyes gleamed at me, like he already knew. I guess 8 is the age where kids talk about that kind of thing. I don't remember. I am just sad, though. So many times, so so so many times at night he asks me to lay down in bed with him, and he wants me to either wrap my arms around him tight, or rub his back and sing "Amazing Grace," which this time last year he was calling "The 10,000 years song (when we've been there 10,000 years)!" How precious is that! Funny, though, is at the exact same time, Cole would call the same song the "sun song ('...bright shining as the sun'). So now I guess I will resolve to lay down with him more, rub his back, sing him songs, and...tell him the truth.