This morning Claire came downstairs and had REALLY bad morning breath.  I mean REALLY.  Like a fish had died in her mouth sometime during the night. (the kid has always been a mouth breather….probably because she had enormous tonsils until about a year ago)  I told her she needed to go brush her teeth — and she gave her very normal, canned response of “why?”.  I told her because she had bad breath and needed to clean the germs out of her mouth.  To which she said…”ew. Germs are yucky.  What is breath mommy?“  I paused…wondering how to explain breath to a 3 1/2 year old.  I said…”well Claire, breath is the air that comes out of your mouth.”.  She looks me in the face, with the nasty fish breath and exhales right into my face…”like this Mommy?“  (I refrained from gagging) “Yes Claire, like that,”  I said.  “Now go brush your teeth”.  She skipped off to the bathroom.

About 8 minutes later (yes 8 minutes…the girl is very thorough…and I think she really likes to make funny faces in the mirror), she returns and announces “Mommy, my air is ALL GONE, see?” (blows again in my face).  Aaah yes, strawberry scented air is much better than fish scented air.  Especially 1st thing in the morning.