Land Shark!

In the midst of all of our May madness of weddings and birthdays and rehearsals...etc., our Joe came up to me and asked if I could help him get the apple peel out from between his teeth. But, of course Sir..at your service. As I'm digging between his teeth, I was surprised to see this...

Anybody else see what I see? That's right. Two rows of teeth on the bottom, a la shark family! I, predictably gasped waaaay to dramatically for the situation which scared Joe right down to his toes. I thought he was going to clamp down on my arm with all those teeth in his head. After explaining what I was looking at to him, I calmly asked if he could feel the new teeth with his tongue. "Well, yeah Mom." That would be the 6 year old equivalent of "Duh!" "Why didn't you mention the fact that new teeth were growing in?" "I don't know...it didn't hurt or anything."

Well, swell. The nice receptionist at the dentists office told us that this is very common and won't take more than 5 minutes to pull the baby teeth out. Yikes! Even if they're not loose? Even if they're not loose. Over at the Meanest Mom blog, she posted about the same thing happening to her shark!

I kindly let Jay take Joe and Bella (who was due for her 6 month check up anyway) to the dentist while I stayed at home with our child that is only growing one set of teeth right now.

Joe handled it like a pro; getting the Novocaine, the pulling, picking his prize from the treasure box of Oriental Trading Co. trinkets that will inevitably break before the van pulls into the driveway. I, myself, have always had a phobia of the dentist. We did not go regularly...or at all as kids. And for the life of me, I cannot figure out why someone would want to stick their hands in someone else's mouth! Yuck! When I do go these days, the nurse/hygienist/executioner/assistant hands me tissues as I sit in the chair. I don't cry, per say, but tears definitely leak out.

Anywho....Joe did great! Until the Novocaine started to wear off and that tingly, itchy feeling took over his face. The poor boy drooled and cried himself to sleep for a long nap after we convinced him that his head would not fall off. When he woke up, it was like nothing happened at all.

After a long discussion about what the Tooth Fairy would do and bring (not a cool coaching whistle like Daddy's), the tooth fairy did visit and left a nice reward...even if the teeth did not fall out the old fashioned way. And maybe the tooth fairy dropped the teeth on the bedroom floor in the dark and had to get on her hands and knees to find them, lest she get mauled by a shark in the morning.

Sometimes, the tooth hurts!

Allow me to formally introduce all of the blogging community to our sweet baby. Trey Douglas was born May 12, 2008.
(if I may interject here, and since I'm typing I say go ahead, his due date was May 5th and since his sister arrived early, every doctor I saw told me to be prepared for this one to come early too. They even said have your bag packed and the babysitter on speed dial. Jay went to the Survivor auditions and had to back out because on the off chance that he would be chosen to get to the next level he would have been out of town in April and that was cutting it too close to baby day. I should blame the medical community for being short one million dollars. Harumph, I say!!!)

We arrived at the hospital for an induction on Mother's Day (awww so sweet!) a mere 12 hours later, Trey got his first look at the world around him.

He has been a perfect baby since, so I hardly ever hold his slow delivery against him. I'll hold onto that nugget for later use.....

All of my children started teething at 4 months. 4 months! This made for creative nursing techniques, to say the least. Trey has been no exception, like clockwork his bottom teeth popped out right on track with his sibs. Then a few weeks later, the 2 top teeth started to show....at the same time the other 2 top teeth started peeking! The poor baby's gums were so swollen and red. This was all happening over Christmas, too. Could he not have waited until AFTER our family brunch at the Country Club? We are now majority owners of Orajel and Tylenol.

Well, this morning I looked in mouth because he's been a bit cranky danky to say the least. And sure enough, 4 more teeth are pushing through! How many 9 month olds have 10 teeth????

He's handling the whole thing pretty well.....he still does "soooo big!" and his new maniacal laugh ( which most of the time he's looking at nothing and no one...just laughing. Hmmmmm?) The worst time of day is 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.....however, if the worst thing I have to deal with today is a fussy baby for 2 hours, I'll take it.

(He was channeling Gene Simmons at the time this photo was captured)