Spit it out

I realize this is going to sound like a completely ridiculous question, but does anyone know how to teach a 3-year-old boy to spit?

To be honest, I figured all boy children would come pre-equipped with things like knowing how to throw a ball, knowing how to make a car noise and knowing how to spit. But alas, I was wrong.

Until Biscuit's visit to the dentist the other day, we had been using baby toothpaste (or training toothpaste, as they call it) to brush his teeth. It's made not to hurt the kids if they swallow it. And Biscuit usually did just that because we have failed in our efforts to teach the child to spit.

Here's how it usually goes:

"Okay, Biscuit," I'll say. "I'm going to take a little drink of this water, but I'm not going to swallow it. I'm not going to drink it. I'm just going to slosh it around in my mouth, then I'm going to spit it out."

Then I take a drink, slosh it around and spit the water into the sink.

"Can you do that?" I asked him. Then he takes a drink, promptly swallows it, then leans over the sink and makes some sort of "pssththhhhhsss" noise.

"See, Mom?" Biscuit will say. "I did it! I did it!"

And I have to break his little heart and say, "No, you didn't do it. Want to try again?"

It doesn't seem like spitting would be a hard thing to teach, but think about it. Pretend you're trying to explain to someone how to do it. It's harder to explain than you'd think.

We got Biscuit some "big-boy" toothpaste with fluoride in it on the advice of the dentist. I understand that Biscuit needs the fluoride, but our pediatrician had told us not to use fluoride toothpaste until Biscuit learned to spit it out. It's not good for him to swallow it.

It's a catch-22.

We'll keep working with Biscuit, and he'll get it when he gets it. But it's just been funny to Jeff and me that something so simple could be so complicated.