Cake Batter Priorities

This morning I had my routine dental appointment. These are usually pretty uneventful, but I have a confession to make–they are usually filled with discussions about proper oral priorities, namely proper toothbrushing and flossing habits and routines. Ouch.

You see, flossing has never been a strongpoint for me, and somewhere in the busyness of mothering young children, I even lost the proper toothbrushing skills–namely length, and sometimes (blush) frequency. I am consistent in brushing my teeth each morning, at least hurriedly, and often later in the day, before leaving for a meeting or something, but more often than I care to admit, I put my tired body into bed with a toothbrushing that I would never allow my children to get away with or (gasp) neglecting to have brushed away any of the day’s eating residue! And, flossing??? Well, with time being of the essence, you can just imagine how few and far between my pearly whites receive their proper pass-through!

I always have good intentions, particularly after leaving a routine cleaning, which usually requires a very thorough scraping of those front bottom inside teeth surfaces–I cannot even begin to imagine how many times I have pledged to myself and to the dental hygienist that “next time” will be different. And, then life gets in the way, and, alas, the scraping tools are utilized heavily again “next time.”

Well, today, I had a new hygienist, and she was so sweet. We had a great time chatting away (you know, it’s so hard when you really want to converse with the person having her hands in your mouth), and she sweetly “reminded” me that perhaps I should obtain an egg timer, or some other 2-minute timer, so that I am SURE to brush the full 2-minutes, and floss directly afterwards.

It’s not the first time I’ve had this suggestion given, but something about the timer clicked this time–well, actually it convicted this time.

I got to thinking about just last week when I was making some cupcakes and cakes for our Vacation Bible School and my daughter asked why I was setting the oven timer for 2 minutes while I was mixing the batter. I explained to her that I had learned over the years that I was not a very good judge of what an actual 2 minutes “felt like,” and that I had learned over the years that a full 2 minutes delivered the proper amount of air mixture, etc, to the batter to produce the best cake possible.

This morning, my mind quickly remembered this exchange, and I stood (well, actually I lie in the dental chair) convicted, right then and there.

It appeared to me that I felt the cake was important enough to use a timer each and every time I prepared cake batter (which especially last week was quite often a few days in a row), but I didn’t place a similar importance on caring for the teeth God gave me?! WOW!

It’s funny because I didn’t waste any time sharing this new revelation with my hygienist friend (well, I did politely wait until the swish and suction was done so I could quickly speak before her hand went back into my mouth), and she laughed. I told her it seemed I had some wacko cake batter priorities rather than tartar control priorities, and that I needed to evaluate this. 😉

So, from this day forward, inasmuch as it relies on me, I will strive to give my teeth AT LEAST the SAME consideration and attention I give my cake batter. (though, I did just realize I don’t make cake batter twice a day, EVERY DAY, or at least not yet) 😉