theITbaby

the IT city, the I.T. Baby

Day five with a cranky teething infant

This one will keep you working
Looks like an angel, cries like a ticked off cat

This is not the triumphant return of writing to theITbaby, that happens later today with content currently written at least until Wednesday… so much stuff to write about both in baby land and portable land, and the other land pays the bills quicker.

This is just me up at 4am due to the Angelcare monitor going off constantly for no reason I can tell. EDIT: evidently it’s going off because Maggie is moving to the extreme edge of the crib and propping her feet up. Gotta adjust sensitivity and position tomorrow.

Thursday of last week Maggie got kicked out of daycare for running a fever. Numerous tests with our thermometer indicated that the daycare just did not want to deal with a cranky baby, and that I however was sick and running a fever. I was, but eh.

This was a day or two after going to the doctor for her nine month check up, so we sort of had the sneaking suspicion that she’d caught the plague in our brief visit there and did not really consider other alternatives.

She also started getting congested, throwing up, and snoring, so a flu was suspect.

But no, she’s got three new teeth coming in. We were told to expect a good four month delay between teeth 3 & 4 and the next set, but 5 is clearly visible up top and six and seven can be seen about to poke out on her lower set.

What this has lead to was us treating her for a cold/flu when we had teething issues, which meant a baby that was crankier than all getout and wondering why we were not doing the right thing for her.

Yesterday we broke out the teething rag. It’s got to be a washcloth because if someone gave it to us for the purposes of teething she doesn’t understand what that could possibly be used for. It’s sort of like the Christmas scenario in which baby doesn’t care about the gift, it’s the wrapping paper that’s the thing, and a cloth is much more floppy than a properly produced teething device.

This has also been perhaps the longest streak in several months in which me and ITMama have been with the baby uninterrupted, with me having to leave work with her Wednesday due to a horking incident on my shirt, her being kicked out of daycare in 20 minutes on Thursday for running a fever (no, she wasn’t.) a Friday of being off work with a very pissed off infant, a Saturday of discovering the teeth that are popping out, and a Sunday of a much happier baby.

While I love my time with her, it would have been nice if she’d have spoken up and mentioned that her teeth were hurting, but for reasons unknown at nine months she still won’t give me medical diagnostics nor will she hand sign anything. Dada still means whatever’s in front of her, and Mama means whatever’s annoying her. Sigh…

Evidently silence except for when being put down for any reason means teeth hurting.

Paul King

Paul King lives in Nashville Tennessee with his wife, two daughters and cats. He writes for Pocketables, theITBaby, and is an IT consultant along with doing tech support for a film production company.