Teething Diaries: Holy Molars.

Fair warning: This post contains some, um, colorful language.  Because that is my teething reality, people.  That is my teething truth.  

7PM
Bedtime rituals commence.  Baby is pure glee in the bathtub – water finds its way onto the walls, the window, the mirror, and into my left eye. Pajamas are donned without incident. Teething tablets are distributed as a preventative measure. Fingers are crossed.

7:45PM
Night-night bottle is a no go, unless chewing, spitting, hissing, moaning, and other generally alpaca-like activities can be considered a “go.”  Milk finds its way onto the walls, the window, and into my right eye.  Approximately 1 out of 8 ounces finds its way into toddler.

8PM
Lights out.

8:15PM
Baby is practicing steamrolling – squirms herself to the far side of the mattress, then aggressively barrels herself toward me, but, too small to generate the force necessary to roll up my larger body, just bashes her head repeatedly into various hard parts of my anatomy – elbow, chin, knee, chin, repeat.

8:30PM
After three misleading minutes of laying perfectly still, baby sits bolt upright and frantically begins “Twinkle Twinkle” hands, refusing to stop until we sing the accompanying song through seven times.

8:43PM
I suspect baby may be sleeping.

8:44PM
Twinkle, twinkle little star…

9:17PM
Baby, furious with me for not allowing her to roll off the edge of the bed, finally collapses in an exhausted puddle of drool while I struggle to grip her ankle tightly enough to keep her alive but loosely enough that she can’t actually feel it.

Baby stays asleep during transfer to crib (thank the Lord in Heaven)

9:54PM
Wellllllll shit.

9:55PM
Retrieve yelling baby from crib, offer her a variety of soothing things to chew on, all of which are rather violently refused. Poor love falls back asleep in my arms in the rocking chair, chomping on her thumb and seeming wildly dissatisfied with my parenting skills.

10:30PM – 1:30AM
During this ENTIRE magical time, the adults in the house should be sleeping.  Instead, we read books, eat ice cream, chat, and enjoy each other’s company, then drift off around midnight.

This behavior is unacceptable to the powers that teething be, and thusly, we are punished.

1:30AM
I jump a solid foot (while lying down!) when I roll over and see baby standing in her crib and staring straight into the lense of the infrared camera, eyes glowing like a roadside fawn.  She contemplates her options for a few seconds, a time I use to pray with great passion for mercy.  She chooses not to remain cribside.

1:31AM
Retrieve yelling baby from crib, offer her a variety of soothing things to chew on, all of which are rather violently refused.  Readminister teething tablets.  After baby is returned to crib, all attempts on my part to exit the room are met with apocalyptic levels of protest.  Baby seems to wake magically from a deep, dreamy sleep the moment I venture more than two feet toward the door.  I fall asleep several times, leaning over the edge of the crib rails.

2:15AM
Mercy appears in the form of my husband, who repeats all steps, minus teething tablets, as I half sleep/half spy on him with the baby monitor.

2:54AM
Fave returns to bed.

3:15AM
Shit.

3:54AM
I surrender and return to bed with baby in tow.  Baby flops contentedly into the space between sleepy Fave and me.  I enter into the half-sleep that is co-sleeping with my husband and my child.

4:02AM
Kicked in the nose.

4:14AM
Someone bites my wrist, hard.

4:25AM
Remove sleeping Fave’s arm from baby’s face.

4:37AM
Baby is now sleeping on my face.

5:20AM
Baby sits bolt upright in the middle of the bed and says “Dog,” clear as day.  “Did she say dog?“ Fave asks without moving.

5:23AM
It would appear that one of us is up for the day and ready to party.  Therefore, all of us are up for the day and ready to party.

7:00AM
Baby falls back asleep and sleeps for 3 hours straight.  Fave and I sit on the couch and stare at each other for a while, because that is the only thing to do.

“Did she say dog?” he asks again.  “Absolutely,” I say, and we laugh for an hour, saying “dog” at each other over and over in strange baby voices as we go about dishes and breakfast and life.

The dog is, himself, confused and slightly alarmed.

And so we go.