Good morning!
This morning when my husband G. Grod and I went in to get our toddler son Drake out of his crib, we were met by an unpleasant smell. Drake was sitting calmly in his crib, and had been awake for some time, babbling happily to himself while G. Grod and I had finished our coffees. Perhaps this morning wasn’t the best one to delay going to get him, though, because our attention was soon drawn to the wet stain on the sheet, and his lovies (loveys?) Duckie and Mouton. We’d been calmly finishing our coffee while Drake sat wallowing in his own filth.
I keep waiting for the authorities to show up at the door, shake their heads, grab Drake and hustle him into a waiting dark car, and say, “You know, they really should make people like you get tested in order to be parents.”
A flurry of excitement ensued. G. Grod hustled the bedding and lovies (loveys?) to the laundry room in the hope that we could get the latter washed and dried by naptime, while I got a bath running for a very confused Drake. In addition to routine-breaking morning bath, we let him have a post-bath naked time, for which he rewarded us by peeing several times. Sigh.
Drake’s screams have increased in frequency over the past week, and there is a new, shriller edge to them than before. His appetite, especially at night, is off. His naps are shorter and he wakes unhappy. He has been waking frequently at night and has been difficult to calm. In addition to this morning’s, he’s had several very messy, poopy diapers in the last few days. While it’s tough to get a good look in his mouth, I think his gums look to be bulging; his incisors may be on the way in.
I find teething, like so much of the rest of parenthood, to be maddeningly vague. It is not something that follows a linear, obvious progression. He hasn’t been drooling or biting things lately. He did those about a month or two ago, well after his last set of teeth came in. His recent messy diapers could be teething related, but they could be a virus. Often, he’s continued to act fussy and irritable even after the teeth have punched through the gums. And, since he continues not to talk, (oh, all right, he can occasionally say touchdown or moo, but those aren’t really helpful in a discussion of whether it hurts and where) we continue to have to follow the multiple-guess method of childcare.
This afternoon he barely ate anything for lunch (he even refused PUDDING!) and was twitchy and screamy. So before his nap and based on my best guess that he’s in pain, I gave him some ibuprofen. (I feel like I’m on the medical show House: “I don’t know what he’s got, but his symptoms point to this, so I’m going to give him meds as if he definitely has what I think he has.”) And voila, he went right to sleep after I calmed his screaming fit, and has been sleeping now for perhaps an hour and a half.
I feel very foolish because it was just last week that G. Grod and I were stupid enough to say aloud, Wow, he’s really been sleeping and napping well, hasn’t he?
Cue the ironic, hollow and bitter laughter.
January 19th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
There is certainly a virus storming the town at present, and the kiddoes in the Emergency Dept have had excessive fussiness among their most prevalent issues, lately.
January 19th, 2005 at 4:53 pm
Damn it, Erik, you are seriously cutting into the likelihood that my mommy spidey sense was right and that the diarrhea/fussiness is due to teething. Plus it’s not like either he or I left the house this past week and were even exposed to anything.
January 19th, 2005 at 6:32 pm
If Drake was happy to sit in a mess, no bad parenting is done in the short time it took you to enjoy a cup of coffee together. If a bath and some laundry are to ensue, a few minutes don’t bad parents make. I will not be calling the child welfare services on you.
January 19th, 2005 at 11:16 pm
Now now, G.D., there’s no indication it’s a virus either. If you haven’t left the house, then it’s more unlikely… but you brought it up first. And as you say, teething (and here’s the thing: all medical mysteries are like this) is “maddeningly vague.” A wily beast, hard to track and harder to bag. Plus, the ibuprofen seems to have worked, so you’re probably right. Plus which, I’d be a bad emergency medicine paraprofessional indeed, if I made it seem like the Web were a proper place to diagnose anything. So, stick with the Spidey-sense. You’ll get no guff from me.
Heck, sometimes in the ER people wake up in poo and burble to themselves, but usually that’s just the really heavy drinkers.