When Zuzu was teething, I remember thinking, why does this have to be the way we get teeth? It’s terrible. One by one all these little knives have to slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, slice their way through a baby’s gums. Like Zuzu, Bear started teething around four months. And he will be teething off and on for the next … year? It doesn’t seem fair. These are babies. Why do they have to endure this?
Last night I noticed that his gums were bleeding. Okay, okay, so I guess you have a reason to be so cranky, little man.
It is one of my failings as a mother that I never kept track of how many teeth Zuzu had. When people asked, I should have been able to say, “seven.” Not: “between four and ten?” Even when she only had two teeth, I had no idea if the tops of any others were poking through. After all, you can’t tell a nine-month-old to open wide so you can inspect their gums. You have to stick a finger in there, and I promise you it’s going to get chomped on.
So I probably won’t be better with Bear. I’m already not better. His top gums feel pokey, but—how pokey? Tooth pokey? Or just pre-tooth pokey?
You’d be surprised how often teeth are remarked upon in babies. Once your baby has sprouted teeth, everywhere you go it’s “look at those toofers!” We heard this so often with Zuzu that my brain began to think toofers was a real word.
Back to how long teething takes. We’ve had a month of buckets of drool, irritability, bad sleep, and cold symptoms that may or may not be teething-related. And all we’ve got to show for it is pokey gums.
I want two teeth, then a break. Who do I take this up with, the tooth fairy?
No comments:
Post a Comment