{"id":77728,"date":"2019-07-16T13:00:57","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T18:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=77728"},"modified":"2019-07-16T12:07:26","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T17:07:26","slug":"the-toothbrush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-toothbrush\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Toothbrush”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A couple of nights ago, I had one of those parenting moments\nthat seemed like a scene from a book, movie, or sitcom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My daughter has a toothbrush with a suction cup on the\nbottom. She likes to make it stick straight up on the countertop and then she\nputs the toothpaste on the vertical brush, before she brushes. That\u2019s not easy\nto do, but because she\u2019s almost four, she \u201ccan do it by herself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We went down that path again that night, but she dropped the\ntoothbrush this time. I\u2019m not sure what the odds are, but astonishingly, it\nstuck straight up from the floor with the suction cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey,\u201d she said inquisitively. \u201cLook at this, Daddy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s great honey,\u201d I replied. \u201cBut it\u2019s time to brush.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She then jabbed the toothbrush against the wall and let go. She\nstepped back and examined her work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook at this, Daddy,\u201d she said. \u201cIt sticks to the wall!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYep. It sure does,\u201d I replied rather tired from the day. \u201cPut\nsome toothpaste on it now, and brush your teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She grabbed the toothbrush but wasn\u2019t about to start\nbrushing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook at this, Daddy,\u201d she said as she slammed the toothbrush\nagainst the door, again letting go. \u201cIt sticks to the door!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, it does,\u201dI said, in an exasperated inflection of a\nperson who understands suction cups, but is too tired to get excited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I walked into the kitchen for a towel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCome on sweetheart. It\u2019s time to brush and go to bed,\u201d I\nreasoned, with my back to her. \u201cPretty please with sugar on top.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I arrived in the kitchen, I heard a gigantic SLAP! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cLook at this, Daddy,\u201d\nI heard her say. \u201cIt sticks to the toilet!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWAIT!\u201d I exclaimed as I swung back around. \u201cDon\u2019t brush your\nteeth!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut why?\u201d She now questioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, my parenting wasn\u2019t done for the evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of nights ago, I had one of those parenting moments that seemed like a scene from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14791],"tags":[14789,5,15,4,14790,5842,14787],"class_list":["post-77728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-story","tag-daughter","tag-mississippi","tag-newt-rayburn","tag-oxford","tag-parenting","tag-short-story","tag-the-toothbrush"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/TLV-TheToothbrush.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}