Flossing, Burns, and Silly things.

I've written about flossing before. Here and here. And maybe somewhere else. It's a thing with me. I do it most of the time, but sometimes something happens and I stop for a while. And then I have to get going again.

I feel completely justified in stopping for a while for certain reasons. For example. The first trimester of pregnancy. You see, if just putting my little toothbrush into my mouth can send me into convulsive gag sequences, imagine what putting my whole hands in there might do. Three months of shoddy oral hygiene are ok with me if I avoid a nightly face-to-face with my toilet bowl. In fact, one of the posts I linked to above was about stopping/starting flossing during pregnancy.

So, at the beginning of this pregnancy, I didn't floss. But you know what, after a while, when the gagging died down and I felt in control a little bit, I started up again. It sucked. And it grossed Jeremy out to see me spitting so much blood. But I did it. You know, because that's what grown-up folks do. Right?

So, all was well. I mean, sometimes I'd feel so exhausted I'd skip the flossing one night, but overall, the teeth were getting flossed.

Then, I did something really stupid. I burned my hand. And not just a little bit. I burned the palm side of my three fingers and the top third of my pinky. I burned it all by placing my fingers on a hot stove burner that had recently been used (unbeknownst to me) to boil a pan of water. I touched it, I screamed, I ran to the sink to put it under water, and then I waited for a the blisters to form. And I didn't have to wait long.

It hurt. I won't go into the details of treatment or misery, but something as simple as wrapping a piece of floss around any of my fingers was so far out of the question that I winced at the thought.

So I didn't floss while my fingers healed.

And then I got the flu. Before the healing was complete. Did you know I got the flu? Like, the thing they always encourage you to get a shot for in the fall? Yeah, that. Ever had it? Well, it's awful.  And who flosses when they are sick in bed for days? Not me. I was lucky if I ATE.

And so, just a few days ago when I thought I was human again after two weeks of flu misery, I was still not flossing when I came across a blog post about forming habits. (I'd link to it, but I can't find it right now--it's not in his archive somehow.) This was written by a guy who would seem to know a lot about forming habits. But when I read his thoughts on this particular habit, well, let's just say it inspired me with its stupidity.

Here's what he said: we fail at new habits because we try to start too big, do too much all at once. His solution: floss one tooth. Yes, for two weeks, floss only one tooth per night. Then, after TWO WEEKS of this, add another tooth. And gradually another and another until you are regularly flossing all your teeth.

Now, I know I am not really one to talk about how easy it is to floss. I hate it. I find it hard. I stop sometimes with less good excuses than those I've listed above. I'm not very consistent, and I don't know if it's clear to you that I don't like flossing. But seriously, one tooth?

I thought at first that he was just using that as a sort of psychological challenge, sort of like saying to us, "really, you are so wimpy you can only handle flossing one tooth?" But no. He's SERIOUS. That's what he really suggests. Where you should really start.

Now, I get the idea behind this. I know that if you've never been a runner, you have to start by running a couple of minutes at a time to build up your stamina. And so on. But I just think flossing one tooth is so stupid that I am now flossing again. After my burn and the flu and despite my 3rd trimester exhaustion and laziness, I'm back to flossing (almost) every night. All of my teeth. Every Single One. And now, each night, I roll my eyes at the idea that I might go to the trouble to get the floss out to floss just one of my teeth. Please.

So pointless. But he did warn me: you can start with flossing all the teeth at once, but the chances that you will stop before two weeks and before the habit has really been firmly established are much greater. Do it his way, he cautions, or this habit too will be destined for failure. Anybody wanna prove him wrong with me? Or do you all think I should beware of pride?