On Monday night Nick slept through the night if you define “night” as “from 11:00pm to 5:00am” which is, at the very least, six hours and not four. Or two. Or 45 minutes! Which, you know, was a nice change of pace.
That all went to hell last night.
You see, at the age of 13 weeks, which is only 3 months, Nick is teething. And he’s either cutting all of the teeth on the left side of his face at once, or else getting his incisors is a hugely traumatic thing and I dread and fear the eruption of his molars. I might flee the country to avoid them. He keeps pulling on his left ear, which started out as “oh hey! a handle! I can hold this! and pull this! AWESOME!” and now is “OH HOLY GOD RELEASE ME FROM MY CHAINS OF MISERABLE MISERY AND LET ME DIE UWAH UWAH UWAH SCREECH UWAH.” He also pulls on his left cheek, cups his hand miserably against it while sleeping, and tries to yank out his own lower jaw.
Dude, I can relate.
You see, I need two root canals. I was going to get them done earlier but I didn’t have insurance and then I did have insurance but I was pregnant and now… well, now I mix tylenol III with vicodin and then curse that I chose that route over vodka. Drugs, you see, don’t work well on me. BECAUSE I AM SPECIAL. And also, possibly, because God hates me and thinks my suffering tastes extra sweet. (I do have an appointment to get the root canals done. It’s for a month from now. Apparently “Oh hey, dentist, I’m in excruciating pain and a previous dentist said I need 2 root canals let’s do this thing” means “take X-Rays, yell at me for having cavities, reassure me that 12 week old infants “sleep all the time,” and then schedule the actual work for a month away.” THANK YOU.)
So I also spend time clutching my face, pulling my cheek, and trying to yank out my upper jaw. We are a sad, matched set.
I’m drooling slightly less, however.
Other things he’s doing involve rolling around like a madman, sitting up without toppling over for about 30 seconds at a time, and perfecting his ability to reach for and grab things. He has two favorite rattles, one which captured his heart weeks and weeks ago and soothes him like nothing else. The other alternately delights him and fills him with utter terror. However! Many things fill him with terror. For instance:
- me sneezing loudly
- me belching
- me yawning too hugely
- Nesko’s hair
- the toilet flushing
- me taking off my pants while saying “whoops, I’m peeling off my skin!”
Yeah. I don’t know, either.
Although the “whoops, I’m peeling off my skin” thing was pretty hilarious.
ANYWAY while I was still pregnant, there were a few items that I either purchased ahead of time or received as gifts and they have basically saved our screaming, teething bacon. They are:
- infant’s tylenol drops
- generic mylicon
I’d add baby oragel in there as well but although I thought really really hard about buying it, I didn’t actually buy any until last night. Having the tylenol and gas relief stuff at 2:00am was really convenient and helpful, however. They’re those tiny things that come in oh so handy; much more so than larger but non necessary things like “an infant bath tub” or “400 bibs” or “those little mitten things that just get soaked in drool.”
So the pain really caught up with him last night even though he was dosed on tylenol and oragel, and a few times he only slept for about 45 minutes before waking up screaming and clawing at himself again. It was very sad. And I was so tired from his screaming marathons that day that I kept drifting off asleep even while he screamed in my arms. And kicked me, clawed at me, and hit me. Poor little guy. Poor little me. He seems to be feeling better today, but I’m left with the worry that like me tylenol doesn’t do much (actually, it often gives me migraines. WOOHOO.) and ‘caines are essentially ineffective. I’m sorry, Niko. My genes basically suck. On the other hand, if someone ever kidnaps you and injects you with heroin to keep you compliant, you probably won’t develop an addiction to it, so there is that I guess.