Dentist: It's not too hard to guess who got a cavitiy

Yesterday was our biannual trip to the dentist. We've visited this office about eight times now, thanks to the follow-up visits we make to get cavities filled, so they are all pretty used to Paul by now. My regular hygenist, Valerie, thinks Paul is the funniest kid to walk the planet, and I tell her she doesn't have to live with them--that funny impression wears off pretty quick. Poor Paul was born with one volume: loud, and soft teeth. Which means that our destist office gets to see and hear him quite often. When Paul's in the dentist chair, his voice carries to every cubicle in the whole office. And this time he had a new substitute hygenist who was blown away by how loud and how much one little kid could talk while trying to clean his teeth. Valerie kept chuckling while cleaning my teeth and listening, but I could tell the other lady looked a little frazzled when she brought Paul over to my cubicle. Paul has to go back for another cavity to be filled...again. Every time I've taken him he's had one. One time he had two. And six months ago the cavity was so huge they had to do a pulpectomy (uh, that's the technical term for a kid's root canal, I guess)! I brush his teeth the same as Elyse's and she' never even had one. I brush his teeth even better than hers now and I floss them. What more can I do??? I keep having visions of him as an old man chomping his toothless gums together like his great-grandma Bluemlein does and it totally grosses me out. I guess by then I'll be dead and I won't have to watch him do it. On a side note, I solved one of the family frustrations we've been having over the last year: two of my kids forget to flush. Okay, it's the only two that are potty trained, but one is worse than the other. First, I tried threats. I tried making them pay me money, going to bed early, doing extra chores, putting up huge posters in the bathrooms warning them to flush, or else--two in the kitchen bathroom. Finally, I had to resort to candy. I hate doing it, but sometimes its the only thing that works. If they flush, they get a gummy bear out of the toilet jar. It's like going back to toilet training them with potty goodies. But I no longer walk into the bathroom and see an unflushed toilet and the one up in their bathroom no longer has a constant yellow stain in the bowl. Hurray for candy!