Chompers

I've always been a little obsessed with my teeth, which have always been pretty big and white. Growing up I had a big space between my two front teeth and a bit of an overbite. After years of orthodontic work, the overbite is gone and the space has been reduced from "large enough to park a car between" to what I like to thinking of as an endearing imperfection. It seems the girls have a similar obsession with their teeth.

Luckily, Jayson's sister, Robyn, is a dental hygienist, and we take the girls to her for their cleanings, starting when they were just about a couple years old (and now Charlie, at 1.5 years). They were each a little fearful on their first visit,  but have grown to love going. They like picking out their flavors for toothpaste and fluoride and Lydia loves seeing the pictures of her teeth on the screen. Lydia asks when she can go again and would like to go every day.

Charlie went for her first visit this past week and she was not really digging it quite yet, but did love having Robyn brush her teeth. When Robyn told her all the flavors of toothpaste (mint, bubblegum, strawberry, cookie dough, etc.), Charlie immediately yelled, "COOKIE!" and sat patiently as Robyn brushed. Charlie loves brushing her teeth. Often we will put toothpaste on each of their brushes and tell them to go brush their teeth and Charlie will yell, "TEETH!" and run into the bathroom and suck the toothpaste off of everybody's brush. If we leave the bathroom door open, it's inevitable that we will discover Charlie walking around the house brushing her teeth with at least two brushes, neither of which is her own. Charlie won't let the dentist look at her teeth yet, but the other two have become very comfortable with letting Dr. Mike count their teeth and rave about how shiny and beautiful they are.