Molar Madness!

Dear Readers,

I must apologize for yet another post on the subject of Grace and her teeth. You see, it takes up a substantial part of our lives and I am once again compelled to comment on it.

Last Thursday, Grace began to sleep horribly. For the kid who's in bed by 7pm and generally sleeps until 7am, this was devastating for us. Saturday she was up every other hour. We were zombies in the morning and my temper was out of control with everyone, including my dear Digby. So I decided on Sunday to hunt around in her mouth to see if there was something going on. In fact there was. Grace still only has 4 teeth up front. We've long ago given up any expectation of seeing any more teeth in there. Her dad has taken to affectionately calling her "quadratooth." But when I fished around I felt 2 molars that had broken through! I was dumbfounded. When this happened, I did not know but since they were through I figured life had to get better. It didn't. By far, Sunday night was the worst. We would rock and rock and rock, she'd fall soundly asleep in your arms, but when you put her in the crib she'd scream as if there was broken glass in it. I finally went downstairs with her and turned on the TV. We curled up under a blanker and wouldn't you know, the only kid's show on was that big stupid Barney. When they began singing the ever-stupid "I Love You, You Love Me," I thought I would throw a toy through the TV. No one needs to hear that at 2am. Monday morning we concluded a trip to the doctor was in order. Maybe she had an ear infection?

So off to our beloved pediatrician we went. I was actually praying for him to say her ears were terribly infected because then he could give us a medicine to fix it. In fact, when he concluded both ears were clear, I said "Damn." He said that's the first time he had heard that in a while. The only thing he said we could do is give Grace motrin and tylenol and if she's got that in her, and she's still up every hour, we had to let her cry it out. Now, if you don't have kids, or if you haven't had kids in say, the past 2 years, crying it out has become exceptionally controversial. Move over Dr. Spock, there's a new doctor in town and his name is Dr. Sears. Thou shall not let your baby cry it out has become the mantra for many parents and pediatricians. Letting your baby cry it out really, really sucks. It's terrible to listen to them scream. Plus, Grace is a puker. She cries so hard, she makes herself sick. The doctor suggested putting a tarp on the ground to make clean up easier. Seems this wasn't the first time he had heard this. I actually think it's worse for us to pick her up, put her down, sleep a little bit, get up again. . . . The little bit of sleep is just enough to totally disorient you. Those nine senators who voted against the torture bill should spend a few days in our house.

So we discussed it and decided since our beloved pediatrician is rarely wrong, we'd give crying it out a chance. I went to bed with a bad feeling in my stomach. On Sunday we had tried it and she screamed for almost 40 minutes. I wasn't looking forward to the night. So imagine our surprise when we woke up today and asked each other, "Did you get up with her? No, did you?" Seems Grace slept right through. Who knows what she'll do tonight but send a prayer our way she gets back on track fast!