How does a Wookie brush his teeth?

All parents know that Chewbacca works hard
to keep his pearly whites battle-ready!

One benefit when Cody turned four was that he finally outgrew his morbid terror of brushing his teeth. Tooth brushing, which should be a quick and easy – even pleasant – undertaking, was a real challenge with Cody. Cody would fight and squirm and complain that I was hurting him while I brushed his teeth. I’ve always had very good dental hygiene and take it seriously, so when it’s my turn to aid with brushing I try to do a thorough job. Cody hates the thorough job.

To gain compliance, I had several tactics at my disposal. My native tendency – grabbing him roughly and screaming at him to brush – had obvious drawbacks. So instead, I had to get creative. Cody, as he’s aged, has evolved in his likes and dislikes, and so therefore my teeth brushing methods have evolved with him. Begging and pleading isn’t sufficient for the job, so I, as a grown man, became a twice daily circus act in the kids’ bathroom.

It all started with “Robot Toothbrush,” which goes something like this: Daddy stands and moves very stiffly and mechanically and repeatedly says (in his most metallic voice) “Robot Toothbrush. Ner-ner-ner-ner-ner.” The ner-ner-ners should coordinate with the up-and-down or side-to-side motion of the toothbrush in the mouth. Robot Toothbrush lasted for the better part of the two’s with decent success – so much so that Andrea started using it on her turns as well. As a side note, it’s one of life’s great joys to watch Andrea, whom I consider one of the most buttoned-up people I know, saying “Robot Toothbrush. Ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner.”

Times pass, and the fascination with robots has faded (unless, of course, the robots turn into cars or shoot people, which makes them super cool). So we lapsed back into begging and pleading mode. That is, until our latest Star Wars craze and the advent of “Wookie Toothbrush.” Wookie Toothbrush means Cody and Daddy open our mouths as wide as possible to allow guttural Rrrrrowwwwaggghh sounds to come out… and the toothbrush to go in. The toothpaste suds foaming at the mouth helps with the analogy. Pretending to be a Wookie buys you a solid 15-30 seconds of quality tooth brushing.

In between Robot Toothbrush and Wookie Toothbrush, for a time I was grasping with straws. For a while the fascination was with super heroes, so we tried various forms of “Super Hero Toothbrush,” such as “C’mon Cody, want to brush your teeth like… er, um… Spider Man?!?!?” The problem is, it turns out that Spider Man brushes his teeth more or less like everyone else, so Cody was never really convinced. (This week’s challenge is for you to come up with Spider Man inspired tooth brushing method).

What finally solved the issue, once and for all as far as I can tell, is Cody turning four and deciding he can brush teeth all by himself. Cody can now lightly glaze the toothbrush over a subset of his teeth for 3-5 seconds and consider it done. It ain’t thorough. It ain’t hygiene. But at least we are back to raising a human boy and not a Wookie or Robot.

Ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner!