Gleaming white shiny teeth

D-Day again yesterday. The twice-annual visit to the dentist. Amazingly he gave my teeth a clean bill of health. Said they looked fine, and obviously I was doing okay with my brushing and flossing. I didn’t feel inclined to tell him I’m only flossing when I remember to do so — which is pretty much once a fortnight or so, plus two or three times in the week just before a checkup.

Took the kids along too. Amusingly they both wanted to go first in the chair, but once Jeremy won had that argument, he suddenly didn’t seem so keen, and needed reassuring that all the scary-looking equipment the dentist had used to clean my teeth to their newly gleaming white state wasn’t going to be used on him. He seemed satisfied when told the dentist would count his teeth for him (24), but followed this with a tantrum when he discovered his dentist showbag didn’t contain a kid-sized toothbrush or toothpaste. Grrr. Isaac was cool with the whole thing, but didn’t get away scot-free: he’s going to need a small filling in one of his baby teeth.

Oh well. By the time I was his age, I had a heap of fillings. I seem to remember by the age of 10 I had 10 fillings, which at the time was almost cool due to the whole synchronicity of it, but it seems ludicrous now. In retrospect I think my dentist at the time was rather over-eager to put them in, probably thinking of his next Mercedes more than the best of care for my teeth. They must have cost my mum a pretty penny, though give the guy credit on the quality of his work — they’ve stood the test of time.