dental hygiene...

Initially, our little one sprouted the typical top two and bottom two front teeth, all pretty much at the same time. And that's all she had. There was no sign of other ones cropping up. Sure, less teeth means less potential for cavities, but no boys in high school are going to want to date a semi-toothless girl.

But then suddenly, more are showing themselves. It's a shame because the best time to see teeth on a child is when they're crying, especially on the changing table. The ones that are coming in are on either side of the top two teeth. They all seem so far apart, but I think that's typical toddler style. Upon closer inspection, I noticed two more. They are these random two teeth halfway between the front teeth and where the molars will be. Very strange.

Along with having teeth comes the need to care for them. I had asked the dentist a while back and was told that, while they usually say to wait until there are 3 or more teeth, some recent studies show that a child should be seen once they have one tooth. One? What are they going to do - wrap a piece of floss around it? Silly dentist researchers. Someone else said that you can wait until they're two years old...now that's a more reasonable answer.

We have an itty bitty pink toothbrush for her. You might be able to brush one adult tooth at a time with this miniature brush. We've done our best to get her to open up and let us get at her grill, but apparently the bristles on a toothbrush tickle quiet a bit on baby gums. She'll giggle for a second then turn her head. We've gotten nowhere. It was recommended that we give her the toothbrush and let her chew on it (much like having Ripley and Rambo chew on a bone to keep their teeth clean, I suppose). But unfortunately, she prefers chewing on the handle much more then the bristles. Toothpaste is out of the question too, so we can't flavor it to appeal to her insatiable love for food.

So, we'll simply need to keep at it and hope that the split second of brush on tooth contact that we can manage does something. At least we can take solace in the fact that these are not her permanent teeth. Does that mean we should ignore them? No. But it sure as hell makes me feel better about what I can only imagine are some funky chompers.