Tuesday, February 24, 2009

And Then There Were Two

Two teeth, that is. I came home from work yesterday to find a fussy baby who had refused to nap all day. I reached into his mouth to massage the gums around his tooth, only to discover that next to his tooth was ... another tooth. Poor guy had less than 24 hours before sprouting the second one.

So, now we have twice the crying. Twice the sleepless sobbing. Twice the chewing. Twice the ability to inflict puncture wounds.

I went out last night and bought an assortment of teething toys, hoping that he'll decide that at least one of them is really cool, so that we can all have some relief. (He was up much of the night whining and sobbing on our shoulders.) So far this morning, we've had a limited amount of success with this bizarre thing. He likes the "bristles" at one end, it's easy for him to grab and hold onto, and he can get relief by chewing on absolutely any part of it. We gave it to him cold from the fridge, but he held onto it long after it had warmed up, so we may have a winner! All of the other teethers I bought were very cute (chewable snails and turtles and fish) but he seems to go for the purely functional. He gets that from his parents.

In other news... I ran into a (male) coworker yesterday who had a baby about a month before LL was born. I hadn't seen him since returning to work, so we stopped and exchanged baby stories. I'm still kind of cringing over their birth story: they had been given a 10-day range instead of a solid due date. On the earliest of these dates, his wife announced that she was ready to have the baby. She wasn't actually in labor... she just decided that since her due date had arrived, she should have the baby. So, they drove to the hospital and announced that they wanted to be induced. She wasn't at all dilated or anything, and her doctor thought that her actual due date wasn't for another week or so, but for some reason, they went along with her and did an induction. After a few hours, she was at 3 cm dilated (pretty reasonable for an induction starting from 0). But, she decided that it was going too slowly, and elected to just do a c-section instead. (And not because she was tired... her husband said that she wasn't in any pain yet, she was just impatient.) The baby was born weighing barely 6 pounds. Stupid stupid stupid. I waited as far past my due date as I could before consenting to an induction, then did everything in my power to avoid a c-section, and this woman wouldn't stand to be inconvenienced by her baby. I asked how things were going now (the baby is 6 months old) and this guy explained to me how annoying it is to spend time with babies... he works as much as he can to avoid being at home. His wife quit her job when she was 2 months pregnant because she didn't like working and couldn't handle working while pregnant, but is now looking into going back to school so that she won't have to stay home with the baby. He then started asking me questions about where I thought he could find the cheapest possible childcare, because he doesn't want to waste money. Um... okay. I'm torn between "To each his own" and "Why the hell do people like this have children?"

7 comments:

Jen said...

Jillian has been rather fussy the past few days and very much enjoys biting on my finger. I'm starting to suspect teething. I guess time will tell.

On your co-worker...all I can say is wow. How unfortunate that a baby will grow up with such selfish parents when there are so many deserving ones out there :(

JLK said...

OMG! That is so awful that the whole time I was reading all I could think was "She must be making this up.....exaggerating.....SOMEthing."

And also, I don't know how close you and this dude are, but what kind of person ADMITS that shit to other people??

To the teething problem - I don't know if anything sciencey or yuppyish has changed since then, but when my little brother was teething we gave him Baby Orajel in addition to the chew toys to numb his gums. Worked like a charm.

K @ ourboxofrain said...

We haven't hit teething yet but I've heard great things about Sophie the Giraffe: http://www.amazon.com/Vulli-Sophie-Giraffe-Teether-Brown/dp/B000IDSLOG. I hope he finds some relief.

As for the co-worker, ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh. It's definitely the latter -- why, indeed.

AwkwardMoments said...

OH My ... Male co-worker. How awful.

I can so very relate to the teething scenario. We are in the throws if it since MT was 2.5 months and they just keep sprouting. He is getting his eye teeth right now. We are also up most of the night. It's been a very soggy and tearful 5 days now. I may have to go get one of those chewys.

Amanda@Lady Scientist said...

I hope that LL gets some relief from the teething toys. That sounds like not much fun for you or him.

As for your co-worker. Ugh! The entire time I read that, I kept thinking "Really? Who says that?" That's just wrong.

George said...

I hope LL gets some relief - at least the teeth have cut through already, so the worst part is over. Well, I guess he still has a bunch more teeth to go...but at least two are out!

Your co-worker is a MORON!!!

PhizzleDizzle said...

this male coworker dude is horrifying me beyond belief. why did they have a baby anyway? did they think it would be cheap and all fun and games? geez. poor kid.