CSI: Special Dental Unit

"A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will not go free."  Proverbs 19:5

Click! 

I’d sent my 7YO to go brush his teeth and after he shut the door, I heard the click of the door lock. 

Now it might not be weird for people to lock bathroom doors in your house, but it is around here.  In fact, with my boys, it is weird if they even shut the door at all.  Just be prepared, should you ever come to visit. 

So, I knew something was up. 

I hear water running and all the usuals of teeth brushing.  But, that click… 

He comes out. 

“Did you brush your teeth?” I ask. 

“Yes.”

“Did you use toothpaste?”

“Yes.”  Shifty eyes. 

“Let me smell your breath.”

He uses watermelon toothpaste so sometimes it can be difficult to discern whether or not he’s brushed his teeth or eaten a piece of candy. 

He breathes in my face.  Hmm…

“You didn’t use toothpaste!  Now get back in there and brush your teeth again.”

“Yes, I did!  You just couldn’t smell it!”

A retort!  Not his usual defense.  Must employ elevated tactics. 

“Well, let me smell your toothbrush!”  Evil mother eyes.

Busted!

His mouth turns up into that little upside down grin that says, “She knows!” 

“Uh huh!  Now get back in there and brush your teeth!  And do it RIGHT this time!”

Often I feel like my own private investigator.  I feel like I’m both the good cop and bad cop.  I feel like I live with a bunch of criminals just waiting to break Mommy Law.  And now it seems they do so and then lie to me about it. 

Will they proceed from not using toothpaste and on to a life of organized crime? 

Or will my detective work moments serve to build a conscience that will speak to them when I’m retired? 

Will I ever be able to retire?? 

Just another day in the life of the Toothpaste Detective.

Hope your pearly whites are minty (or at least watermelony) fresh today!

Tiny

We bought a King Cake for Fat Tuesday a couple of weeks ago.  It came with the baby above.  The kids and I strategically placed it in Daddy’s piece of the King Cake, and my 7YO almost spontaneously combusted with anticipation of Daddy finding the baby. 

He told him, “Daddy, next year instead of a King Cake, just buy us jelly donuts, okay?”

But, oh, that is only one family story concerning a tiny plastic baby. 

Picture it.  Commerce, Oklahoma.  1978.  I was two and staying with Nanna in her mobile home.  My mom calls Nanna to check in on me and hears me crying in the background. 

“Nnnnnnaaaannnnnnaaaaa…..  Ttttiiinnnnyyyy!”   I said through exaggerated sobs and cries. 

My mom asked what was wrong with me. 

“Oh, that S.O.B.-ing Tiny is missing again!” said Nanna, according to family tales.  Only she didn’t use the acronym.

Now Nanna was a Sunday school teacher for at least 50 years.  What was it about Tiny, and occasionally me and my friends as children, that would make Nanna stoop to such language?  (We always thought it was hugely funny when we could get her to say bad words.)

Well, as you can see, Tiny was, well, tiny.  And apparently I had quite the affinity for these tiny babies when I was little.  I held on to Tiny with all my might.  But inevitably, I would misplace Tiny and then it became quite a challenge to find Tiny due to his size. 

I can empathize with the search for Tiny as every two weeks a missing library book usually reduces me to the very last synapses of my nerves.  There will eventually be a wing at the library dedicated to my family’s honor, paid for with fines for missing library books. 

So, the family got wise.  They went to the Dime Store and bought a whole package of Tinies.  *Is that spelled right?  Or is it Tinys?  What kind of grammatical rule applies here? 

Anyway, now whenever Tiny went missing, they could slip me a new Tiny!  Genius!  But the patting themselves on the back ended shortly… 

I wuddn’t no dummy!  I knew they’d slipped me a new Tiny! 

Or at least I figured it out when I found OLD Tiny. 

Then I had two Tinies!  And we had to keep track of TWO Tinies. 

Then FOUR Tinies! 

It was an ever growing problem.   

Tiny survived all of my childhood.  I still had a couple up until adulthood, but alas, they are buried somewhere along with other items of my childhood, like prom dresses and old boyfriend pictures that didn’t get flooded, in some of my mother’s storage items.  I’m pretty sure sometime in my life I will once again run across my favorite Tiny, who was embossed with his own set of underpants. 

But until then, learn from my Nanna’s mistake.  For one, don’t give inch-high plastic babies to a 2YO.  They’re choking hazards, you know!  And if you do, have a plan in place that does not include exponentially increasing your grief should Tiny go missing! 

So, whenever I see a baby from a King Cake, to me he will always wear his full title of “S.O.B.-ing Tiny” due to his tendency to become lost and causing people to lose it! 

Hope you’re not losing it today!  Happy Wednesday!