Brushing My Teeth VS Washing My Face
Some nights it’s between brushing my teeth or washing my face.
Some nights I am just so exhausted that I can pretty much only round up the energy to do one or it’s probably that my baby is ready for bed and I can hear him whining because he doesn’t want his dead, only me, and I need to do whatever I need to do fast.
When it’s one of those nights I have to choose between brushing my teeth or washing my face.
Brushing my teeth always wins and I’ll tell you why.
I have had to had so much dental work in the last 9 months that I am utterly tired of visiting the dentist.
Why so much dental work may you ask?
Well, I can sit here and explain to you that in my 31 years of life I had only ever gone to the dentist once.
Yup, you read that right.
I can also sit here and explain some aspect of my childhood trauma. How my Mother never took us to the dentist and if we ever complained about tooth pain she would tell us that going to the dentist hurt 100x more. That she never had money and dentist cost a lot. That it just seemed like an extreme inconvenience to her so whenever I had a toothache, I would just pop some ibuprofen and call it a day.
Or, I can own up to the fact that I indeed became an adult, and I could have taken myself to the dentist knowing that I probably needed to go but I allowed the fear instilled in me prevent me from going to the dentist that I let it get so bad that I had to go in for an emergency and at that point be forced to face all my dental problems.
When my son was about 1 month old, I woke up in the middle of the night with EXCURCIATING tooth pain. And when I mean excruciating, I mean I was balling my eyes out. I have extremely high pain tolerance and I cried to my husband. (Y’all know my thing about crying to my husband.) I told him, you need to find me a dentist now.
Lucky for me, it was a friday night and no dentist were open on saturday. Also EXTREMELY lucky for me, it was a Holiday weekend and no dentist was open until Tuesday.
Fast forward, I see a dentist. He scolds me on needing all these cavities filled (thank goodness it was only that) but also needing a root canal on said infected tooth.
I was sent to a root canal specialist because apparently I have very long and deep roots (much like a teenagers) and my roots haven’t aged by now. So I guess I should be proud of my youthful roots? But also not really because it also meant very stubborn roots and I had to get a root canal done 3x on the same tooth.
Yeah. . .
Anyways. I know love going to the dentist.
You know why? Free Childcare. (Sorta)
I went in at the beginning of the month for just a normal check up and I had explained to the receptionist that my Husband had transferred locations and now worked very long hours and I had no one to watch the baby for me.
“Bring him! It’s just a check up, 30 minutes, schedule it during his naptime.”
“Okay!”
But of course, baby woke up as soon as we got inside. But because of the wonderful staff (it’s literally the same 3 people. 1 dentist, 1 assistant, 1 receptionist) she said, I’ll rock him for you.
And she did. And I went and got my XRays & teeth cleaned and my baby was a happy camper. He loved all the attention and my dentist even said I needed to start a TikTok account for him because he was so cute. (Not gonna happen.)
And that was that.
We are now making it a priority to stay on top of all check ups.
My daughter loves going to the dentist and my son has his first appointment after he turns 1 which, pray for me.
We take the time to floss and brush our teeth at nighttime all together. Sure, weird bonding family time but it’s the way we can ensure that my daughter flosses and brushes her teeth and to be honest, holds us accountable too.
Brushing my teeth will always win over washing my face because I can live with wrinkles (which I am going to get anyways) or acne for a bit. I would much rather have that, than the excruciating pain from a tooth infection.