Dental hygiene

So I have mentioned we have a thing about hygiene in my house. There are a lot of things we have going for us but cleanliness is one of them. I can strictly remember my mother watching me like a hound dog to make sure I actually cleaned myself. And my father yelling while I was in the bath I don’t hear the water moving. So maybe I have my own twisted reasons for being obsessed with being clean.

This week we had to go to the dentist, and for the past couple of months I have been threatening Zaryus with the thoughts of cavities. It was like Santa coming at Christmas, except this was going to the dentist and pictures of needles not sugar plums were dancing through his head. As a parenting tip, you can threaten the hell out of your kid for almost everything. I use my threats on behavior and hygiene issues, but you can pick your own battle, and you will most likely win.

I am not too into anything outdoors, as I’ve mentioned, and I really don’t like dirt and bugs. So when I watch Zaryus dig in the dirt for hours, or Zoey eat sand I am mortified. I hear people around me say things like they don’t bathe their children every day, and I don’t know how to handle this information. My kids get one or two baths A DAY. And sometimes I don’t feel like that is enough.

The dentist has always been a happy place for me; I did not have cavities and still have not to this day had one. So I’ve always enjoyed going, I also was not really allowed to eat sweets, and wasn’t half as sneaky as the child I have birthed so I didn’t have to worry much going in. Zaryus on the other hand, has been thrown into growing up with the birth of his sister and has been put in charge of taking showers, and brushing his teeth, cleaning his room...etc. It’s not that I don’t love him, which I do, it’s just that I have a lot on my mind, and since he’s pretty independent he has been put in charge of the easy stuff.

So lately he’s been commenting very proudly that he has yellow teeth, but no cavities. He also has taken to blaming all of his farts on Zoey, which is another topic all together. Anyways back to the dentist, I think I was a little more nervous than Zaryus but I kept it cool. I felt like a shitty mom all week for not brushing his teeth more, I mean I watch him do it, and send him in the bathroom multiple times a day. (Side note I don’t know how parents with more than two children do it, shit is rough over here). We go into the dentist and I’m all nerves and he’s okay, because things don’t really scare him too much.

We go in and I admit immediately that I don’t floss his teeth. No one looks at me like I’m crazy or like cps is going to be called. Zaryus starts to get nervous, when they ask him to lay back and open his mouth. I walk away, and pretend to be preoccupied with Zoey. The whole trip ended well, I’m told he had the best teeth the dentist had seen all day and he was her last appointment. Not to pat myself on the back, that’s all Zaryus, I would have given him a treat if he didn’t have a fluoride treatment and not allowed to eat for 4 hours.

When we get home we call his father and tell him the good news, and as I’m talking him up, what is my son doing but…eating candy after being told not to eat by the dentist several times. And of all things candy corn!  I yelled and he spit it in the floor quickly. It all worked out, I am not as shitty as a mom as I feel I am in my head, I will still make my kids take a trillion baths, and dirt and bugs will probably always gross me out. Being a second time mom is exhausting, candy corn, juice, chocolate milk and all.