Thursday, 6 September 2018

It’s nice to have teeth ―歯があるのがいい-


A friend of mine recently mentioned that his young children sometimes cry so hard that they vomit.  When I asked him what made the kids cry so much, he said that it was generally because they wanted candy.
In order to avoid having similar problems with our own two-year old son, my wife and I have never given him any chocolate or sugary sweets.  So the foods he gets most excited about eating are raisins and plain yoghurt with a little honey.  Nobody could cry hard enough to vomit just for a raisin.
I would also like my son to avoid having the same problems with his teeth that I had when I was growing up.  I grew up eating as many sweets and snacks as I liked, and drinking fizzy cola.  And I had to get fillings for many of my teeth when I was still a child.
Although my son doesn’t eat much sugar, he hates to have his teeth brushed.  He screams and squirms like he is undergoing torture.
I was the same as a small boy until one day I heard my grandmother talking to my brother about her teeth.  She had a pair of false teeth.  She told him that because she hadn’t brushed her teeth as a youngster, they had gone bad.  One day she had had all of her teeth pulled out.  The image was so terrifying that I never failed to brush my teeth again.
It’s nice to have teeth.

Vocabulary:
to vomit – to throw up; to expel food from your stomach, out of your throat
a fizzy drink – a carbonated drink, especially sugary drinks such as cola or lemonade
to squirm – to wriggle or twist one’s body, especially from discomfort


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