My daughter, the fish; also, some stuff about my teeth

About the time Suzannah learned to walk, she decided she was through sitting down in the bathtub. It was the strangest thing. She'd still splash around in the water -- but she wouldn't sit her little bottom down. If I tried to help her do so, she screamed so loudly the neighbors probably thought I was trying to drown her. I did try to get her into the shower with me a couple of times, but that wasn't terribly successful, either. So for the better part of a year, I had to bathe her standing up in the tub, pouring water over her. (She didn't particularly enjoy that either, and sometimes I had to play a little game we call "Speed Bath.")

Lately, though, she approaches bath time a little differently. It goes something like this: I say, "Should we go take a bath?" and Suzannah goes tearing into the bathroom, where she tries to climb into the tub immediately. Last night, I didn't say anything at all -- I just went in and started the water. When she heard that, she came running and tried to climb in, clothes and all. I managed to wrestle her sundress over her head, but when I asked her to run it across the hall and put it in her hamper, she looked at me and howled, "No! Bath!"

Once she's in the tub, not only does she sit, she throws herself down on her tummy. She kicks and splashes and laughs, and if I say, "Suzannah, are you ready to get out?" she very deliberately wags her head back and forth and says, "No no. No. No no no." Her tone is actually quite polite in a "Not right now, thanks!" kind of way. However, if I decide it's time to get out before she's ready, she's not so accommodating -- so I've figured out that the way to end the bath without tears is to drain all the water from the tub before I try anything. She says "bye bye!" to the water, and then when the tub is empty -- and not a moment before! -- she'll consent to drying off. My guess is that we'll have more success with her wading pool this summer; last year, she was extremely tentative, although when I stuck her sand and water table in the pool and stood in there with her, she played cautiously. I think she wasn't terribly fond of the chill of the water outside, but that doesn't seem to bother her anymore.

Last week when Matt's family was here, we drove to Point Defiance in Tacoma and wandered down to the beach. All I could think was, why haven't we come here before? Because Suzannah loved it. She didn't play in the water much, but she loved the waves crashing around her feet, and she stood at the shore and yelled, "Whooooaaa!" A starfish washed up on the beach, and while it probably wasn't terribly healthy, it was still alive -- so I held it in my hand and convinced Suzannah to touch it. She was surprisingly gentle. (Actually, I've noticed this with Blondie, too; Suzannah is getting so much better about petting the puppy nicely, which we've been working on for, oh, her whole life. And yesterday Suzannah very nicely fed Blondie about three handfuls of oatmeal under the table. VERY SNEAKY, Suzannah, but cut it out with the mind games -- Blondie doesn't know that the next morning when she lingers hopefully nearby that she is NOT ALLOWED TO LOOK AT YOU.)

***

Let's talk about teeth. Specifically, mine. This is for all of you who make fun of my compulsive brushing habits.

So, I had an appointment to get my teeth cleaned yesterday. I've gone every six months since I moved to Washington; my dentist is a stickler for that. They're incredibly thorough; they take little measurements on all your teeth every time you visit, to see how much gum recession you have. Then they deliver all the predictable lectures on flossing and brushing gently. (I'm not good at the "brushing gently" part, I admit it, although since I began using a Sonicare I'm a lot better. Also, I'm not good at the coffee drinking, as in, I do a lot of it and THEY CAN TELL.) My visits are comfortingly predictable: I get all the same lectures on flossing and brushing gently, delivered by a cotton-candy-voiced hygienist; I endure the INSUFFERABLE SCRAPING (you all know what I'm talking about); my teeth are polished up and flossed; the dentist comes in, peers in my mouth for five seconds, says everything looks great, and asks how school is going. And then I get a carnation.

All in all, not too bad. Except for the INSUFFERABLE SCRAPING, which makes me dig my fingernails into my palm so hard they leave marks for the rest of the day.

"Doing all right?" the cotton-candy-voiced hygienist asks.

"Ugh-huh-ggghh," I say. (Which is all anyone can ever say with an open mouth, especially if it's filled with those horrible cotton rolls and latex-covered fingers. So why do dentists and hygienists always insist on trying to carry on a conversation?)

I haven't actually been to the dentist in nearly a year; I had an appointment for early spring, but I was really sick -- coughing and sneezing and phlegming all over the place, and I could hardly talk. So I canceled it. The soonest they could get me in was yesterday (unless I wanted to go at seven o'clock in the morning, which I didn't), since they book that far in advance. I managed not to think about it until about an hour before my appointment, when I decided I probably shouldn't have my morning coffee before a cleaning. And then I promptly started to freak out about ALL THE SCRAPING THEY WOULD HAVE TO DO, because I hadn't been in since last August.

The visit began like any other; one hygienist poked around my teeth, murmuring numbers (the lower the better) while another one wrote them down. It was like I was waiting to hear the score on a math test -- did I pass? Did I do well? Did I get an A? I was pretty sure my numbers were appalling, that my teeth were about to fall out, that I'd be lectured about flossing (wait, that happens anyway). But when she finished, she said, "Boy, I wish my numbers were that good."

"No kidding," said the other one. Really? Okay, that wasn't bad.

And then the scraping started. But it only lasted a few minutes, and it didn't seem nearly as vigorous as it usually does. And then she stopped.

"You have no tartar and hardly any plaque," she said. "I don't have a lot to do today."

Bells began to ring and a choir of angels descended from the fluorescent lights above my head.

"Really?"

"You're done! You've taken really good care of your teeth this year."

Would you like me to let you in on my secret? I brush my teeth after lunch every single day. I haven't always done this, but I started carrying a toothbrush in my school bag this past year. Every day, I make sure to allow enough time at the end of our piddly lunch break to brush my teeth before heading back to class. It makes sense to me; afternoons are not my best time of day, and if I freshen up a bit, I feel a little more energetic. Also, sometimes I like to eat things like hummus or chicken artichoke hot pockets, and who wants to taste that all afternoon?

But you'd be amazed at how many of my colleagues make fun of me for this (and this is as close to writing about school here as I'll get). One lady in particular always manages to wander into the bathroom while I'm brushing my teeth, and she always, always laughs. In, like, a knee-slapping way. "Oh, there you go again!" she cries. "You and your toothbrush! You're so funny!" And I'm always like, uh, okay. Then I ask my lunch buddies, "Is it really THAT weird?" And some of them look at me and say, uh, yeah, actually it kind of is, why don't you just chew some gum?

BECAUSE I ONLY HAD TO BE AT THE DENTIST FOR A TOTAL OF THIRTY MINUTES, THAT'S WHY! I can take any mockery for that.