Remember when I wrote about the Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy mess?

After the Easter weekend, I went into the little angel's playroom. Ma had drawn a picture of a bunny on the little angel's white board when she left. The next day, Ma's bunny was replaced with a headline, "Things I Believe In," and three pictures: Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

We've talked about whether or not she should believe in them several times since the kids at school told her they weren't real, and both Beloved and I keep turning the conversation into a question for her -- what do you think? Neither of us wants to lie to her, but neither of us sees the harm in a little magic in childhood.

But this picture -- this picture made me sad, a little. The clinging, the need to write it out, to validate something I know won't last much longer. Often I'm shocked that she's seven. Birth to three seemed to take ten years, but three to seven shot by in an instant. I just taught her about Santa, didn't I? Is it really time to let it go already? We were just getting good at it!

It may seem contradictory that I'm writing about letting it all go as she's drawing pictures of it on her white board, but I see the pictures as evidence of her internal struggle. Are they real? Aren't they real? Should I believe the other kids? Why are my parents being so wishy-washy about this?

And there's a big part of me that just wants to get it over, to tell her it's a lovely fairy tale, that yes, it's us, it's always been us. Who could love you more than us? Who takes more satisfaction in your joy than us?

But that's another message that loses its magic if you shoot it straight. She needs to figure it out on her own.

This morning, I went to take a picture of the white board. Three dirty tissues lay on the floor, and it was all wiped away.

Yesterday, some kids told my daughter that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny are all frauds. She asked the lunch lady, and the lunch lady told her that her sons still believed.

The little angel cried a little bit and decided she didn't want to play with those friends just then.

My husband told me this story after our girl went to bed. I asked him what he said. He had told her that people believe all kinds of different things, from religion to politics to bunnies. You can still like other people even if they didn't believe the same as you do. I thought this a brilliant response.

I personally can't stand the Easter Bunny because Easter is the most important Christian holiday -- there is no Passover Chick, and I don't see why we need a bunny. I've never really leaned on the bunny and would be relieved to just tell her it's us, man, it's us. We know you like chocolate.

So she still believes. For now.