Brushing my son Takeh’s teeth always takes a long time. It is not so much that he adamantly refuses to brush his teeth, so it is easy for me as a parent. I know a family where the parents brush their children’s teeth while holding them down, so it is not so hard compared to that.
However, it is not easy to get him to accept the toothbrush the way his parents want him to. Trial and error continues day after day to figure out how to get him to open his mouth.
When I put the finishing touches on his toothpaste, I always imitate the vocal exercises of a choir.He sings “ahhhhhhh” in a scale of “do-re-mi-fa-fa-fa-fa-mi-redo,” then goes up a semitone and sings the scale again, “ahhhhhhhhh.This continues to the limit of the vocal range.After I lead with “ahhhhhhhhhh,” I call out to him, “Come on!” and he imitates me and makes a vocalization that sounds like a musical scale, although he is not very good at it.During this time, his mouth is open, which is perfect for brushing his back teeth.
As he repeated this every day, his pitch got better and better. I did not expect that brushing his teeth would improve his singing. Even I, who rarely get a chance to raise my voice because of my telecommuting, found that my throat condition improved a little by singing. It’s a good thing for both father and son.
He not only sings “ahhhhhhhhhhhh” but also imitates my “Come on! However, he is still developing his listening and singing skills. As a result, “Come on!” becomes “Gohan!” is now “Gohan! He clearly shouts “Gohan!”, so he is probably not lisping “Gohan”, but saying “Gohan! I think he says “Gohan!
(Gohan means rice in Japanese).
Aaaaahhhhh, Gohan!” he shouts, very cute.
I’d love to take a video to document this, but I’m in the middle of helping him brush his teeth, so I can’t film it. These interesting traits do not last forever. They come and go with the rapid growth of the children. In fact, the “rice!” gradually disappeared after about two months of frequent occurrence.
(2023.06.07)
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