To floss before... or after?

One evening last week we were having a discussion with a certain son of ours.  The conversation was really about the fact that this particular child has always had way more energy than is normal for one human being and that by ten o'clock at night in our seventeenth year of living with said child, his parents are feeling way too old to deal with silverware juggling in the kitchen or dance moves in the basement that involve lots of banging against doors, walls and ceilings. What this conversation probably sounded like though was; "What the heck were you thinking?!  Why are you being ...  YOU....  at 10:00 at night?!"  Yeah.  That's about right. Then we learned a disturbing fact.  He had been getting ready for bed. He had flossed his teeth.  He had water pikked his teeth.  He just needed to brush still. We were dumb founded.  All the twerking and knife throwing was forgotten. He had flossed BEFORE he brushed?!  Then he revealed that an older sibling had told him he should do things in that order.  We dismissed the older sibling's advice as ridiculously ill informed and sent him back to finish his dental hygiene routine with strict orders to always brush first as all good citizens do.

But then I started to wonder.  I texted the older sibling.  Had he really told his innocent little brother to floss first?  Yes, he had! "I always thought it made more sense than the other way,"  he texted back.  And when I pointed out that the dental hygienist always finished up with the flossing he responded with a: yeah but, "It makes more sense to dislodge things first, then brush."  Now I was very curious and began texting and interviewing all of my kids.  At home I had one who still did it in the order I am sure we taught them when we deemed them old enough to be trusted to not strangle themselves with a length of dental floss, and three who insisted that it was disgusting to NOT floss first. Away at college we had 2 who floss after and 2 who floss first.  I told them they were doing things all wrong and got texts like this back:  "No we don't! You wanna get all the stuff out of your teeth before you brush"  and "Sounds like you're the one doing it backwards."

I even emailed the missionaries, but while I waited for their Monday evening emails, I decided to google it. "Should you floss before you brush?"  It turns out that this is a serious debate outside of my family too.  And the majority of those who floss first agree with my children who think it is gross to brush before 'dislodging' any leftover dinner in there, while the rest of us think it is equally gross to stick your hands in your mouth and start 'dislodging' anything before a good, thorough, brushing.  One link was to the American Dental Association page, I thought that here at last I would find vindication, after all, my hygienist DOES floss last when she cleans my teeth.  But the Dental Association says, and I am paraphrasing here: "Please just floss! Before, after, morning, night; we don't care!  But floss!"

So I retracted my earlier order to the child who had originally confessed and unwittingly subjected all his siblings to intense questioning.  Floss whenever.  There was much cheering that they had won the right to do what seemed right to them in the first place.  Not that I believe any of them would have changed their ways anyhow, they just would have remembered to not bring it up anymore.  I accepted long ago that my kids come up with their own way to solve math problems that frequently make little sense to me, and that they don't feel compelled to follow my recipe when cooking, and that when they clean the bathroom they don't fold the towels the same way I do. (Though I did put a stop to the bathroom cleaning method that involved dumping some of every cleaning product in the cupboard into the sink to make the perfect cleaning 'potion,' that is the sort of thing that could end in a 911 call).  My kids don't do everything my way, and my life would be so boring and predictable if they all did.

Eventually the missionaries emailed back.  One flosses after, and one companion thought she was weird for it. The other flosses first, and he asked the other 3 missionaries in his apartment and they all floss first too! Crazy kids.

Of Play Dough and Shoelaces

I never make play dough anymore.  Never.  We used to always have homemade play dough around.  I used to buy cream of tartar in bulk, because my favorite play dough recipe uses cream of tartar.  Now a small jar in my cabinet is sufficient to meet my occasional need for snickerdoodles or lemon meringue pie.  I bought Kool-Aid packets because Kool-Aid not only gives your play dough fantastic vibrant colors but also makes it smell amazing.  And probably encourages small children to eat it too, but, hey, let's face it, many of my kids probably stuck way worse stuff in their mouths than play dough. But what is truly sad is I don't remember when it was that I made that I made that last batch. One day I threw away the latest mess of play dough, the original vibrant array of colors all merged into one lump of grayish brown, and I never made more. And no one complained, because they didn't feel the need for play dough in their lives anymore.

And that is the way with so many things.  When was the last time one of my babies crawled into my bed in the middle of the night?  I don't give nightly baths anymore.  I don't even check on Fionn to make sure she got all the shampoo out.  I don't tie anyone's shoes but my own. I don't bounce toddlers into a pair of pants like shaking an overstuffed pillow into a pillowcase.  I depend on them to brush their own teeth at night and can't recall when I last bodily pinned a kid to the ground and pried open their little jaws to make it happen.
I don't clean crayon off the walls anymore, when once it was part of my weekly cleaning routine.  All these things have just faded away.  Once they were each a routine, sometimes monotonous or even annoying part of my life and then one day, without warning, they stopped. I didn't know when I was cleaning the last crayon from the walls that it was the last.  I didn't know when I tied my littlest's shoes for the last time, that it was the last time.  I didn't know when I grudgingly rolled over and shared my pillow with a little person at two am that she wouldn't be back the next night (and the next... and the next).

The tying of shoes, the brushing of teeth, the sleepless nights with babies and toddlers have given way to endless rides to class, to work, to parties and activities; to late nights helping with papers or studying for tests and just listening to the adventures and frustrations and triumphs of teenagers.  And I know that, just like the experiences incident to having babies and toddlers in the home, these too will fade away into the past.  I know because they already have in some cases.  I still give lots of rides, and because we have lived in one place for a long time, those rides are frequently to the same places, but different teenagers sit beside me now as I drive to the Y, or to various stake centers in the city or to one of the college campuses in town.  Sort of like how, much to my husband's bewilderment, there was crayon on my walls for about 15 years... but, as I explained to him, different toddlers were putting it there.

And that is why, even though I do still like to give my kids a hard time about the hours I spend in the car with them and not home doing the laundry, I don't really mind at all.  In fact I like it.  Especially if laundry is the alternative.  Because I am very aware that in another year or two I won't get to spend daily time of any kind with some of these kids because they won't be kids anymore and they won't be in my house anymore and they won't need me the same way they need me now.  Just like they ceased to need me to tie shoes or make them play dough, eventually they won't need me to help with homework or give rides.  And even though I may not miss the specific experience of staying up all night encouraging (read that 'forcing') a sixteen year old to just write something already so that they have anything at all to turn in by the 11:59 pm deadline, I will really, really, really miss the time I have to even be in the same room with this person.