I was at Five Guys Burgers and Fries with two of my daughters Lizzy (age 3) and Becky (age 6). They have unshelled peanuts to eat while you are waiting for your hamburgers. So I got some peanuts for the kids, some ketchup for our fries, and some drinks. I then sat down with the girls.
I started shelling some peanuts then I watched my daughter Lizzy dip an unshelled peanut into the ketchup, take a bite, and start chewing. Being the good dad that I am, I watched. After a few seconds of her chewing I looked at her and said, “Lizzy, is that yucky?” She nodded her head. I asked, “Would you like to spit it out?” She nodded her head and spit the shells out of her mouth into a napkin I provided. After that, she started smashing the unshelled peanuts on the table to get to the peanuts out. It was pretty messy.
Just Like Lizzy had to learn that shelling peanuts was better than eating the shell, learning to take care of your teeth is something that we all need to learn. It is not something that comes naturally and it is not intuitive. It is something we have to learn, then practice, then implement on a daily basis, morning and night.
I regularly see patients that have ten, twenty, even up to fifty thousand dollars of dental work done in their mouths. More often than not, this expensive work is not being taken care of very well at home. Just how you would park your Ferrari in a garage, change the oil regularly, and keep up with the regular maintenance, there are steps you need to take to ensure that your teeth and existing dental work last as long as possible.
Over the next few blog posts I am going to talk about how to take care of your teeth and existing dental work. I will make it EXCITING and AWESOME.
Peterson Family Dentistry 