Teeth, and the Last Day of School

I really love to brush my teeth.  It feels good.  Leaves my mouth fresh.  Satisfies that obsessive part of my brain that is into patterns and repetition and order.  That’s not to say that I brush my teeth as often as I should.  I’m pretty good about brushing in the morning, unless it’s a weekend and my day starts off in a slower, more lazy way.  

I’m very hit-or-miss about nighttime brushing.  And it seems to me that nighttime brushing is even more important than morning brushing in terms of overall mouth health.  I mean, at night there’s no saliva flowing, no movement of the inside-the-mouth parts, and whether we sleep with our mouths open or closed, if there is food residue in there while we’re sleeping, we’re just setting up a wonderland playground for the little germs that live in there and eat our teeth when we’re not looking.   But skipping the nighttime brushing is so much easier perhaps because there is no social stigma.  I mean, skipping the morning brushing leaves you breathing horror into the faces of anyone you talk to, while skipping the nighttime brushing offends only you, or perhaps the person that shares your bed and suffers your open-mouthed breathing in his or her face.  

Still, I do a fairly good job of both morning and nighttime brushing when I’m on a set schedule.  When I am regularly required to do certain things at a certain time and/or place.  

I am about to be cut loose from most such constraints for eleven weeks because today is the last day of the school year.  After today, our only regularly scheduled stop will be Thursday storytime at the library, that and the need to generally get the children food and sleep at approximately the same times each day.  

Before you assume that I’ll be sleeping in and eating bon-bons all day, let me reassure you that laundry and dishes and cooking and entertainment and vetting of media and discipline and mediation and education and legos and the carving out of time to have adult conversation with Partner and squeeze in some personal intellectual development and the enaction of my own dreams and goals and aspirations—not to mention a birthday party for an eight-year-old— will all still occur.  I’ll just be able to do it without having to get up at the crack of dawn or go to bed before midnight.  

I’m just not sure I’ll remember to brush my teeth.  

Comments

[astraea126]

I like brushing teeth too. I'm always happier with a good minty (or cinnamony) mouth. :)

I still can't believe Sonar X7 is going to be Sonar X8 soon. I can't wrap my head around it. EIGHT years? Really? I remember him as a baby bump, as an infant, as a toddler, as a brand new kindergartener with an incisive mind. Is it totally weird to you?

Good news is, he's one of the coolest to-be-eight-year-olds ever. I feel confident that he will do good things in the future, such building us our own green-friendly houses and bringing hydroponic veggies to us. Along with 20 bars of good chocolate and quirky novels that will entertain our aging senses. ;)

I miss the Sonars. And I miss you and Partner. Weh. Need that teleporter!