Good morning. If you don’t brush your teeth right now, we are going to have to start talking about tonight’s bedtime, which will be earlier by five minutes on each occasion you refuse, and I know you don’t want that, because you want to stay up and write poetry, or whatever it is you do in your room at night. Fact is, I don’t really care as long as you don’t come out again, so that we can catch up on “Game of Thrones,” which is inappropriate for you to see even a few seconds of in passing when you’re on the way to the kitchen to get a glass of water, which, by the way, I realize is a tactic you use to delay bedtime because children have been doing it since the dawn of the Earth, despite the fact that you thought you were being so innovative, and it’s not that you aren’t clever, you are, but I’m onto you.
Point being, brush them, or you will have to go to bed at a very early, sad hour for a responsible child of your age, who, let’s note, is not quite responsible enough to brush her teeth without my asking her to do it three or four thousand times.
Listen. It has been five minutes since I asked you to brush your teeth, and I can sense - without even looking at the clock - that we are already running late this morning, by virtue of the special sense that all women are bestowed when they become mothers, which helps with things like this, and also with things like knowing, before I even open my eyes on certain Saturday mornings, that you and your siblings aren’t going to allow me to sip my coffee quietly for even a minute or two in peace, because you are going to start fighting over the sheet of three stickers that we got at the doctor’s office last week, which had fallen under the couch but has now resurfaced and – because it is exceptionally valuable, depicting cartoon characters from a movie that you guys have not even seen for the love of christ – will become the most desired item in the house.
I can sense this fight before it happens, and that’s why on some Saturday mornings, I make double the normal amount of coffee for me and your father, and I kiss that intriguing story about millennials and their Brooklyn lofts in The New York Times Real Estate section goodbye before I even get through the first paragraph, because, yeah, I’d love to read it – to make fun of them, sure, that is part of it – but I had better catch up on foreign affairs if I’m going to have time to read only one story, which let me tell you, is going to be the case on a Saturday like that. Anyway, regarding this morning, if you don’t brush your teeth right this minute, you’re going to miss your bus, and you know I’ll drive you if you do, but it’ll be NPR the whole way and I’m going to talk back to the reporters out loud, and you are getting old enough to find things like that embarrassing. So. Think about it.
Ok. You’ve decided to ignore my repeated requests to brush your teeth, doing who in the world knows what instead, while I’ve been putting on makeup and considering how I’m almost 40, and realizing that it’s impossible to erase the fatigue from my eyes this morning, despite tricks I’ve learned over the years regarding using a light eyeshadow shade to brighten the eyelid, thus imparting the illusion of a well rested visage. But it is not working, and if people look closely, they will be able to detect that some member of the household has been waking me up on a nightly basis for the past month, because his or her, blanket isn’t “on right,” or he or she, “has a boogie,” or, in last night’s case, how it was the dog, who woke me up so she could go out, because she is ungrateful. I mean, I love her. But. She. Is. Ungrateful. And do you know what else they’ll see if they look into my eyes? The emotional battle scars I incurred as I waged war with my eight-year-old this morning, who I adore, but who would not, despite my pleas and threats, brush her teeth, and, speaking of threats, I need you to do it, or else – I’m sorry, I really am – I will take that Harry Potter book and put it in the toilet.
Yes, I’m aware it won’t fit, like, not at all, because it is around 3,000 pages, and I am proud of you for being such an avid reader, but I am getting desperate here and don’t have time to think up creative, constructive consequences for your repeatedly ignoring this one very small – and may I mention very hygienic – request, and that is what I’m going to do. And when I do, I may add, it will hurt me as much as it hurts you, because I treasure books, and furthermore, we only have that one bathroom, which – did I mention? – I haven’t used all by myself in approximately eight years, which is an interesting number of years if you think about it and do some math. Anyway, do you know would happen if someone lovingly suggested I brush my teeth? I’d do it. For twenty minutes probably, relishing the solitude.
So, really, this request is born out of love, and I think when you finally grasp that, you’re going to honor it– not grudgingly – but with shining adoration in your bright young eyes, and I will wait for that sweet reward patiently. But patiently for only five more minutes. So what I am saying here is that you have five minutes until this all goes down, and what I would do if I were you is, please, to sustain goodwill and sanity, do it.