A Big Girl Day!

Today was a big girl day for Katie Anne.  First, we tried a "big girl" ponytail for the second time in her life today.  I've been playing with her hair in the evenings while we watch tv, and I've been thinking we might be able to do a real ponytail again.  So, she was in an especially agreeable hair-do mood this morning, and we gave it a shot! 

Precious!

And, while reading my Parenting magazine this week, I read that dentists are recommending that you start flouride toothpaste as soon as your toddler is ready to - for lack of a more polite phrase - rinse and spit.  Katie Anne loves to brush her teeth with me, and she's been pretending to rinse and spit for a few weeks, but she's still been using the training toothpaste because I was afraid of fluorosis.  But, I also had my first real cavity filled the week of Christmas, and it was horrible.  So, I want to prevent as many cavities in KA's teeth as possible.  We picked up some real "big girl" toothpaste yesterday, and she tried it this morning.

She did amazingly well!  I told her this was big girl toothpaste like Mommy's, and it would foam up like mine - and she'd have to spit it out and NOT swallow it.  Normally, she brushes first and then I finish up, but she just wanted me to brush her teeth today because it was something new.  I brushed her teeth in stages, allowing her to spit out the excess foam about three times, and then showed her how to rinse and spit.  She did a wonderful job with the whole thing and didn't swallow any.  When we were finished, she smiled at herself in the mirror and said, "Look at how white and shiny my teeth are!"

What a big girl!