I Hate Teeth

As you will note in Noah's five month birthday photo (Wouldn't it be fantastic if even as adults we got to celebrate birthdays monthly."Hoorah, I am 329 months today! Bring on the cake!"), he has two adorable little  teeth. Thus far the fact that they are adorable is really their only redeeming feature. Ever since their appearance a little over one month ago, I have been battling biting, drooling, shrieking (banshee style, not sad/hungry/cuddle-me cries), and the occasional diaper from the abyss. Yet another thing someone failed to mention in my breast-feeding class. "By the way, they get teeth at four months, but it is highly encouraged that you nurse until one year." I'm thinking a male doctor is behind all this high encouraging. A male doctor without any children. Or a wife. Or a brain.

Noah is an amazingly good baby. He usually doesn't cry much (unless God-forbid you sneakily try to lay him on his tummy when he's not paying attention. I'm sure the neighbors, upon hearing the commotion, were calling child services.) Since ten weeks he has slept through the night without needing milk or a diaper change. Until last night, when for some reason the earth ceased its revolutions, shuddered and started spinning backwards. I had already been up with him twice, reassuring him that if he just shut his eyes and let his Sleepy Sheep lull him off to ocean lands all would be right with the world. By the third time I went in his room, all was distinctly unwell on earth and would not be made right by any amount of Sleepy Sheeped coaxing. As I sat there feeding him in the pitch black, with the wonderful Husband, trying to keep his eyes open and be supportive next to me, I wondered how I ever did this three times a night. It was less than half a year ago, but it seems like another lifetime. It was back before purposeful smiles, and mashed up green beans. It was before the walker and rolling over. It was before those two nasty, adorable little incisors.

Aside from how much his sprouting teeth bother him, those teeth are a reminder of how quickly time is progressing. Those teeth are little pictures that my baby is growing up, becoming a little man, and soon the responsibilities of midnight feedings will give way to midnight growth spurts, midnights waiting up for him, and midnight college decisions. They are a blessing and a curse those twin teeth. As are all parts of growing up.