Superheroes Bestow the Gift of Dental Hygiene

Dental care used to be a hateful task in our house. This was largely because I was designated Herr Brossmeister and the Kinder tended to resist my attempts at asserting order among their young, candy-prone teeth. The fact is, Ian's teeth need intense attention at brushing-time, and Amy is not the man for the job. But Ian and Daniel both like to resist my attempts - Ian because he's still hungry and he didn't really get any dinner and he asked for a snack three times already and nobody has given him anything (plus he doesn't like my brushing), and Daniel, just out of the Chaos Principle that seems to guide much of his daily operations. As a result, I have felt like the dentist from Marathon Man, and my two little Dustin Hoffmans have always dreaded that point in the daily routine about as much as I do.

But no longer.

As of last night, the boys have two electric toothbrushes - already enough to take the burden off of me, AND they have toothbrushes that make them actually want to brush their teeth? Why, you ask? Because Daniel has a Spiderman toothbrush, and Ian has a Wall-E toothbrush AND Wall-E-and-Eva toothpaste. So last night, I could actually use toothbrushing (with the new acquisitions) as the carrot, to get Daniel to brush his teeth, and this morning, Ian spontaneously decided to brush his teeth. In fact, he asked me if I needed to brush mine, and I took that as an invitation to a meaningful bonding ritual, so I stopped getting ready for work long enough to brush my teeth with him.

But best of all, as I was about to leave, Daniel was already lying in bed, but he was awake, so Ian went in to talk to him. When he came out of the bedroom, Ian announced:

"I just told Daniel that he could brush his teeth with his Spiderman toothbrush now, and he smiled."

(March 19, 2009)