Creativity, Boogers, and Dental Hygiene

Creativity is a virtue I hold in high regard.  I admire it in others and try to cultivate it in my own children. I want to encourage their creative minds when they bubble up, but sometimes it appears in strange ways.

Exhibit A.

Both of my kids go to swim school once a week. At swim school they sell cookies. Sometimes I get them one after lessons, sometimes I do not. Kenzie began asking me about whether we would be getting a cookie from the moment she realized it was swim class day. When we got in the car to drive there and she still couldn’t get me to commit, she tried this tactic.

“Momma, I have a booger in my teeth,” she told me.
“A booger? In your teeth.”
“Yes. I can’t get it out. Can you get it?”
“I can’t get the booger out of your teeth while I’m driving the car.”  I would say about once a day I have a wow-that-really-just-came-out-of-my-mouth moment. That was the moment.
“I think I need a chocolate chip cookie. I think the cookie will get the booger out of my teeth.

Now this is just smart. Four out of five dentists will tell you that boogers are worse for tooth enamel than coffee, red wine, and certainly worse than chocolate chip cookies. One out of five dentists is a booger eater. Incidentally, booger-eating dentists are the reason we are hounded about our flossing habits every 6 months. It’s the guilt.

Anyway, we got a cookie that day. Anyone willing to eat her own booger or to just come up with that excuse deserves a cookie in my book.

No boogers in those teeth.  (And don't worry, I was parked when I took this picture.)