Back a few weeks ago I was discussing how the princesses and their plastic paraphernalia have infiltrated my daughter’s once pure, commercial-free mind. It’s been bad enough trying to explain that she can still be a little mermaid while brushing her teeth without using branded toothpaste. But now a Person of Authority handed her… well, let me start at the beginning.

We went to the dentist. Georgia was complaining of a toothache and though I was pretty sure it wasn’t a cavity, I took her in.

She was terrific, so patient and curious, asked questions and opened her mouth wiiiide, and even sat through three bitewing x-rays (I was a little squeamish about that, Baby’s First Intentional Radiation Exposure, but I let it go).

She didn’t have a cavity, hooray! But there was some plaque build-up so Dr. Hamilton suggested we start flossing in between her molars. I asked, innocently enough, “What kind of floss do you recommend for an almost four year old?”

Scarlet, the assistant, was overjoyed to bring out several yellow, plastic flossers in individually-wrapped packages emblazoned with princesses. Princess flossers! The colorful, big-eyed, tiny waisted gaggle of gals printed on the plastic winked at me, and then laughed. I thought I was going a little nuts for a second, but then all at once they yelled, “Nyanny nyahnny nyah nyah!” right at me. No one else noticed.

Dr. Hamilton unwrapped one and let her try flossing a bit, then showed me the spots I’d need to get. He told me I could keep reusing the flossers until they start to shred, a direct rebellion against the printed admonition to “Discard after use.” I was thankful for that.

Scarlet handed me the small pile and I smiled wanly, took the princess packages and stuffed them into my purse.

Now, I floss the old fashioned way, but these little things are pretty ingenious, especially for inside a tiny person’s mouth. But once they shred, they’re dead, and not recyclable. And what are the princesses doing in my child’s mouth? How do I explain to Georgia that once she gets bigger she’ll need to start flossing without all the plastic accouterments? Or maybe we’ll just get a reusable flosser. But how much ‘splainin’ do I have to do now that she’s got some validation that the characters she recognizes equal something valuable? Because Dr. Hamilton wouldn’t give her something that’s not good, right?

As we started that evening’s tooth ritual we got out the flosser. Georgia studied it and smiled and I steeled myself for princess envy, but she said, “I like these flossings, because they are in the shape of FISH! See, this is the big body and this is the big, chomping mouth. Chomp! Chomp!” She swam the “fish” around the bathroom and inside her mouth. Her teeth are clean and her mind is filled with lots of things. The princesses are in there, but this time I got to “nyahnny nyah nyah” back!

Coming up: The Plastic-free Week experiment! Starting Thursday in our house! Anyone want to try it with me?