I think we'll be seeing at least one tooth emerge in the next couple of weeks. Rachel is being particularly cranky lately and I believe I can see some semblance of a cusp on the verge of breaking through her delicate and swollen gums. Poor baby.
Of course, whenever Rachel is abnormally grumpy I blame her teeth. I suppose it's a defense mechanism of sorts for me: don't blame the baby, don't blame myself...blame those dratted teeth! If I have to displace my frustration somewhere I suppose teeth is a good place to put it.
So far we've had plenty of whiny days and no teeth so perhaps I should find some other excuse for her bad temperament. I'm lucky though because the bad days are far outweighed by good days. I don't have to excuse her behavior very often.
Anyway, I'm going to guess that the first tooth she gets is her lower central incisor on the left side. I'll have to double check my guess in the morning because she's in bed right now and I'm trying to picture her head in my lap...prying her mouth open long enough to take a quick peek inside, risking my finger's well-being to feel her gums. Yup, I think it's the one on the left...but I get left and right confused sometimes. Anyway...
Any other guesses? (I know my mom has some).
I fear that this tooth will come any day now, but it will probably take a week or two just so that I have to live in fear for that long. I'm really quite worried about her teeth coming in--she's not always very gentle. She bites down so hard on her fingers (with her gums) that she's made herself cry and has brought me pretty close to tears myself.
I'm also kinda used to how she looks without teeth: little, infantile, brand new. I hate the fact that she's growing up so quickly. I guess I just should enjoy every moment while it lasts. Motherhood is hard though and that sometimes makes it hard to enjoy every moment...
Today she cried and cried and cried and when I finally got her to stop crying she whined and whined and whined and when I finally got her to stop whining it was because she fell asleep and when she woke up she slowly worked her way from an annoying whine to a gut-wrenching scream.
She was happy only if she was on my hip and chewing on my shoulder/hair/shirt while I walked around and got little to nothing done.
Looking back I should have been more patient. I should have cuddled with her and empathized with her pain and told her that everything would be "alright." Instead I almost cried myself and kept begging her to "please stop crying!"
Nap time was heaven-sent today. Mommy was going a little bit nuts.
But she is so, so, so cute and lovable just the same (even if I have to go in to her bedroom at 11:30 at night and soothe her back to sleep after giving her some teething tablets that I still have to give back to Kim...I just did that).
I spend so much time complaining about being a mom even though I love it most of the time. That's because the hard days are so very, very hard. The good days are good but it's winter and I tend to be much more of a pessimist in the winter so I forget the good days when I'm having a bad day. I suppose I should write more about the good days. I'll try to remember to do that. The next day we have a phenomenally great day (we have a lot of those) I'll start my post like this, "Today was great!" And that way I'll remember that we had a lot of good times, too.
On a funnier note...when we were over at Andrew's parents' house on New Years, Jacob asked about Rachel's teething.
"Is she teeting?" he asked.
"What?" I asked back.
"Isn't that what it's called, 'teeting,' when she gets her teeth?" he clarified.
"Teething," I said, "Because you get teeth."
"Oh," said Jacob, coming to a realization.
Her teet should be coming in any day now, Jacob!
When Karen was teething a lot it was quite often like that: lots of whining and crying some days, then not so much for a couple days before starting the cycle over. The good part about it was that she tended to get a set of four really close together and then take a break for a while. Maybe that's what Rachel's doing, getting ready to break in several teeth at nearly the same time?!
ReplyDeleteI don't remember which post talked about that backwards game, so I'm commenting here, This is the conversation Matt and I have been having on chat:
ReplyDeleteme: you're a goof
Matthew: foog if you lleps ti sdrawkcab
Matthew: what I mean is, I'm teird
me: Nancy has a game called backwards that i think you would love
Matthew: ylbaborp
me: i don't know how you do that so well
Matthew: nuf sdnuos ti
Matthew: .sdrawkcab ni kcab ti epyt neht dna ,tuo ti etirw tsuj ot si hcihw fo enO
This is what happens when Matt gets tired of being at work.
I hate the teething process and I am not looking forward to going through it with Maggie. Have you tried Gripe Water? I used it with Maggie when she was colicky and it said on the bottle that it was suppose to help with teething, so if you are desperate you might want to try some!! Good Luck and I hope it pops through soon, except there are alot more to come.
ReplyDeleteBonnie--that is hilarious about Matt. I don't think that I would want to play against him...he's much too good.
ReplyDeleteAnd although I'm not desperate yet, Heather--where in the world did you find gripe water? I haven't been able to find it anywhere and was under the impression that they didn't sell the stuff down here...
It's what we use for colic up in the big, white north.
I found it at, I think it is called Good Earth. It's that health food store on State Street not far from us. If you go get some it is located in the vitamin area. There are a few different brands, I have used Wellements (I think that is how you spell it) and Baby Bliss (don't get the apple flavor it had a recall on it. My sister's daughter is teething as well and she says it works great for her, if she gives it to her at night her baby will sleep longer. It is a little expensive but well worth the cost.
ReplyDelete