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Sunday, January 31, 2010

Thoughts on teething

Well, they're all pretty negative, naturally. I MEAN. This teething thing? Who came up with this? It is a terrible, terrible idea. Nora's bottom two teeth came in about two to three weeks ago, and she's been working on her top two teeth since then.

Well, at least I think she has. I mean, I know they're coming in now because her gums are all swollen and weird looking and today I saw a teensy little nub poking through, but has she been teething for two to three weeks? Who knows?

I've always wondered about where people come to their teething conclusions. "Oh, she's chewing on everything. She must be teething!" they say. Or "Oh, she's drooling! Is she teething?" Or "She sure seems cranky. Teething?" But here's the thing. Babies chew on stuff, drool, and get cranky. All babies. All the time. So how are people so sure that THIS time, those things are a sign of teething?

My favorite part, however, is how these people who are so sure that the drooling, mouthing baby is teething are always proven correct, because, eventually, teeth appear. So after weeks or even months of, "She's teething" claims, out pop the teeth and they say, "See?"

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

We used to joke about if we could still use the "she's teething" excuse when she was crabby at 18 because it really is a catch-all that seems to be overly used.

april said...

I always thought that babies should have no teeth until you are ready to no longer breast feed. Then they should all come in within a week. It would be a hell of a week, but then it would just be over.

MoreSimplyHuman said...

LOL--you are right about this. It's so annoying. I used to wonder why we haven't evolved to have little teeth slots in our gums, so that teeth could just pop out when they're ready. I mean this whole teeth-cutting-through-gums thing is just so PRIMITIVE! :)

Shelly--your comment made me laugh!

April--when my first son's teeth came in, my husband was playing with him and--I kid you not--the baby laid on his chest and BIT his nipple. I just about died laughing!

Mama Bub said...

Whenever my son would run a fever, which was not often, my MIL would insist that he was teething, not sick. He never ONCE ran a fever in conjunction with teething. Ever. But, she would insist that was the cause. Even now, if he's sick, you can not convince her that it's not teething. Nevermind that he ALREADY HAS all of his teeth.

Heather R said...

YES!! I was at the dr the other day and a young woman asked me how old Sawyer was when his teeth came in. I said that he was about 7.5 months. She said, "my daughter is 8 months old and she has been teething since she was 2 months old, but her teeth haven't come through yet!" I was like, "oh...." I mean, really??

Kader said...

Not only did one of my friends say, "He must be teething," but she also claimed to *see* the teeth coming through his gums. Guess what, folks? It's been a month since you *saw* those teeth, and there still aren't any teeth!

I think he just likes to drool. No, seriously. It's his first hobby.