Well, of COURSE.

I made my way blearily down the hall and carefully opened the door to the twins' room.  It was about 12:30 a.m.

Mika followed me on silent kitty toe pads.

Oh, of course.  Medium Fry is sleeping on the edge of her pillow, pretty much dead-center over where her tooth fairy box is.  I reached under both Pillow Pet and pillow, and gently tugged out the little plastic round box that my mom had decorated just for Medium's tooth fairy offerings.

I slipped back out into the hall and used the corner shelf as my staging area to remove the tiny baby tooth and replace it with quarters.  Then I quietly went back into the twins' room, attempting to slide the slender box back under the pillow and make my escape.

I love it when a plan doesn't come together.

I had just barely slid the box under the pillow (and thus, under Medium's head) when she stirred.  She opened her eyes and looked right at me.  I pulled up the sheet and kinda tucked her back in.  "It's okay," I whispered.  "I'm just checking on you.  Go back to sleep."

Medium settled back against her pillows.  "Did da toof faiwry come?  I didn't see hewr, 'cause I was asleep."  (I had explained at bedtime that the tooth fairy was like Santa Claus; neither of them came to visit until children were asleep.)

"I don't know," I whispered back.  God, forgive my white lie.  "You can check in the morning."

"Can I look now?"

Great.  I wasn't going to get her to go back to sleep until she checked.  "Okay, you can go ahead and look now."

She fished the box out, and just as we opened it, Small Fry rolled in her sleep and conked her head against the guard rail...which woke her up, crying.  I went over and soothed her, and then came back to Medium, to help her count her loot.

"Mika is in hewre," Medium pointed out.

"Yes.  He followed me.  Know why?"  Medium shook her head.  "He says, 'Mama, I know your foot hurts and you don't feel good, so I'm gonna follow you until you go back to bed and get some rest, and I'll come in bed with you to make sure you stay there.'"

Medium grinned.

I turned on their clock radio again, to hopefully let the classical music steal them back into slumber.

It was not to be.

I had to go downstairs and wake up Hubby and have him come help me console Small Fry, who kept insisting to me, "But I want you."

Once we had finally tucked everyone back in and gotten them settled, we went to bed ourselves.

Somehow, I am not surprised that my middle-by-a-minute child is the one who woke up as I finished tooth-fairy-ing.