Remember back a few weeks ago when I joyously announced that my over a year old child had a tooth? Well I can confirm that was now a piece of pasta leftover from lunch. Gross! As with just about anything with parenting; I really had no idea what teething entails and had only heard the numerous horror stories of sleepless nights, swollen gums, and a general replacement of your baby with a spawn of the lower regions. On the flip side, I had read in those idiotic books that teething is blamed for so many ailments from fever, to diarrhea, to spontaneous combustion, that I just figured I would wing it as best as I have done so far. I have fastidiously fastened a Baltic amber teething necklace to my son's neck since he was 6 months old in hopes that I would just one day wake up to a full grill. As the months without teeth dragged on, I figured that the necklace is more of a teeth preventer than a pain reliever.
But here we are. 14 months old and teething is finally here. I am faced with a child that is by night an insomniac, up at least 3-4 times a night. This is even with doses of Tylenol and teething tablets in his system. By day, my child is clingy, crabby, sensitive, needy, generally unable to please for more than 5 minutes at a time. And the boy that lives to eat, merely nibbles now all the while fussing as if he is starving. Of course I am deliriously contemplating fixing him a sandwich at 3am as I am positive that he is hungry from not eating much dinner. But I know better than to jump on THAT train. Needless to say, I am guiltily happy when nap time and bedtime arrive to glean some sort of reprieve from the swollen mouthed crabby child that has replaced my sweet baby boy. My friend's child just finished getting in all of his teeth at 16 months, he started at 5 months. Another year of this and I may just be having only one child and a sudden interest in wine.
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