Brush Your Teeth--Carefully!

I have inadvertently created an urban legend: the Tale of the Blood Spewing Toothbrush! I expect that this tale will be all over our neighborhood by the end of tomorrow's school day. But that's okay because the end result will be that the children of our town will learn to both fear and respect their toothbrushes.

You see, I was talking to my friend, Emily, on the phone today and I simply asked, "How are you doing?"
She said, "Oh fine, except I was up late worrying about my friend."
"What happened to your friend?"
"She was getting her kids ready for bed and her 2 year old got her toothbrush stuck in her throat and she had to take her to the ER because when she finally pulled it out, blood was squirting out of her mouth."
I'm sure my gasp was heard 'round the world. "What?! How in the world did that happen?"
Emily quite calmly explained that the tot had fallen while brushing her teeth and the toothbrush got jammed in her throat. The mother had to take her to ER to make sure that she hadn't punctured an artery or something.

Now here's a true dilemma. I think I've heard that one should not remove an object that has impaled a body because of the gushing blood problem. The object serves as a kind of plug. But, what if that object could also cause you to choke? I can only imagine the terrible choice between air and blood. The mother in this story instinctively chose air (and let's face it, probably didn't think that the toothbrush had gone through the back of the throat), but she second guessed herself when she saw the blood. To make matters worse, the poor woman is 8 months pregnant and her husband was away on a business trip. All I can say is he owes mommy a night out when he gets back.

After I got over the shocking reality of the Tale of the Blood Spewing Toothbrush, I began to realize the potential power of this story if retold carefully to my unsuspecting children. Just last week my mother was reminding me of the time I asked why the lady in the store had only a few black teeth and my mother had said, "Because she didn't brush them." You can bet my brushing improved from that day forward. If I've only learned one thing from my dear sweet Army-trained mother, it is that fear has its uses.

Perhaps my mother's greatest attempt at using scare-shock tactics to encourage good behavior happened one day while my sister and I were passing the time in church. We were about five years old and tended to suffer terrible giggling fits in quiet places. My mother had asked us to be quiet, but we were unable to control ourselves. There comes a time in the Catholic Mass when the priest is blessing the Host and the wine. As part of the ritual he raises up each one of these symbols and a bell is rung. Up goes the host and there go the bells: jing-a-ling-a-ling... jing-a-ling. If the bell ringer is feeling particularly celebrant, he rings the bell longer than he should. Since my sister and I were short and could barely see over the pew, we had not yet figured out the identity of the bell-ringer. So, we turned to our mother--knower of most things-- to solve the mystery.

"Mommy, who is ringing those bells?" She very matter-of-factly turned to us with squinted, determined eyes as if she was about to swat a fly, and said, "Jesus Christ is ringing those bells and if you don't sit up and be quiet, he's going to jump down from that cross and slap you across the face."

I wish I was joking. We stared at her, shocked by the news that Jesus could hop off the cross. We stared at Jesus. We expected him to glare at us the way our mother did. The bells stopped ringing and we didn't utter another sound. But, I did have a lot to think about. Jesus did not look like he was in any condition to discipline me. But, he is Jesus so I imagined he could do anything. I spent the next 30 minutes avoiding my sister's gaze and seeing if I could detect any signs of movement in Jesus's fingers, toes, or eyelids. I thought about how embarrassing it would be if Jesus had to single me out and ask me to be quiet during His Mass. I think I was 7 before I figured out that the alter boy rings the bells.

So, here I was today thinking about the toothbrush story and how I could use it. We've been having a little trouble with silliness and goofing off at bed time. Certain people in this house don't want to focus on their bedtime procedures. Well, you know what happens to little children who goof off while brushing their teeth, don't you......

We picked up Chris after work for a family Target run. While my audience was captive in the car, I said, "Oh my God! Guess what Emily told me today?" I began to retell the tale of the disobedient child who ran amok with her toothbrush in her mouth and got it stuck in her throat. I carefully explained that when the mother pulled it out blood squirted everywhere and the child had to be rushed to the hospital to before she bled out. Everyone is fine now, but that just goes to show you that when your mommy and daddy tell you to stop goofing off and brush your teeth, you should probably do it, unless you want to die a horrible bloody death.

Mary said, "I don't like that story."
Garrett said, "You mean about how that little girl was running around and fell down and then choked on her toothbrush and had blood squirting everywhere?"
Mary added, "Yeah, about how she didn't listen to her mommy and daddy and died."

SUCCESS!

Perhaps you think I'm cruel. You have not had my week of rowdy bedtimes. And guess what? Jesus gave me a sign that I did the right thing because after Target we all went to Burger King and saw a lady with terrible black teeth and Mary asked, "What's wrong with that lady's teeth?" And of course I said, "She didn't brush her teeth every day. Don't point."

Divine

I have been reading a book to Garrett and Mary with the word divine in it. A little girl tastes her father's pasta sauce and says that it is divine. When I first read the word Garrett asked, "What does that mean? Divine?" I said, "Well, in this sentence it means that the pasta sauce is really, really good." The next day I was reading the story again and when I read the sentence, "Mmmm...mmm, divine!" Garrett asked again, "What does that word mean?" Mary chimed in and said, "It means really, really good, remember?" Garrett said, "Oh yeah."

It was bugging me that I didn't completely define divine the night before so I said, "Well, it means even more than that. It means that it's so good it comes from God." Garrett wrinkled his eyebrows in thought and said, "Like, OH MY GOD! That's so good!?" I said, "No, like God created it--God in Heaven."

Garrett thought some more. "You know what I think would be divine? A BIG, HUGE cup of hot chocolate that I could swim in. And I could float on a big marshmallow and sip chocolate from a straw. And then I could put on my goggles and go swimming and dive for chocolate chips and eat them too."

Wow, that really would be divine! Incidentally, since I haven't kept up with blogging I will tell you that our little Miss Moo has an incredible memory. It doesn't surprise me that she would remember my definition of divine word for word. Later, as I was laying with her she said something clever and told her, "You know what, Mary? You are really smart." She looked at me with a big grin and said, "K-Mart smart!" I asked her, "Where did you hear that?" She said, "From that man on the television and he's carrying a lot of presents from a store and he says, "Smart. K-Mart smart. I like the sound of that."