What are pliers?

We went out for dinner tonight because the kids and I got home late after going to see my ballet teacher dance in the Nutcracker.  At dinner, Charlotte was wiggling her tooth and I told her to just pull it out.  She tried and said she couldn’t.  I asked her if she wanted me to pull it with pliers when we got home, and she enthusiastically said ‘Yes! Then I will have money from the tooth fairy!’

So we get home and do bedtime routine.  We were getting ready to brush teeth, and Charlotte says, “Mommy, you were supposed to pull my tooth with pliers!”  I said, “Oh yeah!  I don’t think we have any pliers up here though.”  She says, “What’s pliers?”  I told her to follow me, I know we have some downstairs and I could show her.

Both kids follow me downstairs, with Cooper already brushing his teeth.  I go to the tool drawer in the kitchen and pull out the pliers.  Her eyes got as big as saucers, and she screamed and said, “No, I’m scared. No, no, no!”  Cooper dropped his tooth brush and went and cowered in the play room, crying.  Charlotte turned to run and I grabbed her arm with the pliers in my other hand.

She was obviously terrified, and said, “No, no mommy.  I don’t want to.  NOOOOO!”.  I told her to calm down and listen to me.  She took a few deep breaths, while side-eyeing the pliers.  I told her she could either just let her tooth fall out or I could use the pliers and pull it out so the tooth fair comes tonight.  She hiccupped that she would wait for it to fall out and then ran away from me and yelled, “Daddy, daddy!”  Cooper followed suit and I put the pliers away.

The kids were clinging to daddy and were terrified of me.  I couldn’t help but laugh at the entire situation, while Chris comforted the kids.  We went upstairs and with tears in her eyes, Charlotte says to me, “I want daddy to put me to bed.”