Shane - 9 months

Teething sucks.

Ask Shane. He'll cry you a note.


Shane has at least his two topside middle incisors coming in, and he is not happy about it. Carrie first spotted white on Thursday and emailed me at work. There hasn't been a lot of progress in the teeth sprouting past the gum-line since, but there are two clearly visible white 'blisters' that have formed. There's no doubt that my son is teething. Especially since he's transformed from happy baby to "Cry! Cry some more!" baby. The poor kid even wakes up to cry and moan in the middle of the night. Friday, he woke up at 10 PMish and Carrie calmed him back to sleep, and then he woke me up at 5:11 AM this morning (Yes, I know exactly the time as the red digits of my alarm clock seared into my sleep addled brain this morning). I tried to tell Shane to man up, but he's not taking my advice so far. Maybe that's my wife's genes? (Kidding!)

Thankfully, Baby OraGel (or whatever it's called) works wonders. Shane will be thrashing like a monster, but after I pin him down, pry open his mouth and put a tiny bit on his top gums, he's calm within a couple of minutes. It's almost as if he's hurting, fussing, and then suddenly can't remember what he was bothering him. If I can distract him from being upset, he comes around that much sooner. We first used the gel Saturday night, and I used it last night after he bawled no matter how much Daddy played with him throughout the entire Fantasy draft last night. He got a quick dab of it this morning around 8ish as well, but I've been able to keep him mostly distracted since so I haven't used any more. It's not that I'm anti-meds, but I try hard to reserve medicine for when it's really needed.

There is an alternative method that MomMom mentioned to me first. I've since heard it from other grandparents and sources, too. The alternative method involves a shot of whiskey. The parent of a teething baby dips their finger into the shot and the dabs at their baby's thumb. This calms the baby. The parent then downs the shot. This calms the parent. Who says old methods aren't as effective as newer ones? Ha! Here's to hoping Shane feels better soon!

Boy, can this boy move! He's still doing the commando crawl, but he can pull himself up and get at things that he has no right to get at. I've found myself jumping up to grab something I didn't think he could get on multiple occasions. And talk about cranky! The teething is making Shane sore, but he'll also start bawling if you take away or prevent him from getting something he wants. For example, if I open the door to the cat/laundry room, Shane will stop crying and make a beeline for it. The moment I shut the door, the crying will start. Whatever Shane wants, he wants it sooooo bad. I'd also blame that on Carrie, but my mom swears that's what I was like as a baby. If I wanted something, I wanted it with the passion of a "fiery, burning sun!"*

Some bullet points:
-I never got a good picture of Shane's bottom teeth. The wiggle-butt always manages to move or close his mouth. I've felt like Daddy Ahab chasing the great white teeth. The teeth are winning.
-Shane is able to crawl over small obstacles. If I lay on my side, he'll push up me to where he's part standing, part leaning against me.
-This kid is strong. He can pull over chairs in his walker if I'm not careful. He crawled up on me today to be able to reach his bouncer. Shane then pulled so hard that the opposite ends of the bouncer went up in the air so that he could chew on the frame and play with the toys. I wish I had a video camera.
-Ranger is probably going to be Shane's kitten. The cat will let the boy manhandle him sometimes and will play underneath the jumper WHILE Shane's jumping. Insanity. I had to throw the jingle-ball to lure that cat from his doom.
-Speaking of cats, Shane has decided that he loves cat toys. Every time I remove one from the room, Ranger brings it back and Shane then tries to eat it. I got a cute video of him shaking the ball for the cats on Carrie's iPhone.
-Mom discovered Shane loves straws.
-Shane's cousin, Noah was born today!  I'm hoping they'll grow up rough-housing and be good friends.
-The boy still loves music. He has me singing all sorts of tunes. I still make up words to keep from getting bored. Two-and-a-Half Men taught me a fun version of "Mary Had A Little Lamb" I use...
-9 Month Doctor's appointment is Thursday. We'll get weights and heights then, but the boy is weighing over 23.5 lbs for sure.
-Solid food is an on-again, off-again success. There are times Shane will chomp down whatever you put in front of him and other days that he refuses. Mom seems to always be able to get him to eat, though. I think Shane views the feeding chair upstairs as a medieval torture device where things are shoved in his face.
-Shane still sings and makes noises, but he's not saying individual words often.
-Carrie installed all of the gates after Shane scared her by attempting to scale the basement stair well. He got his hands up and pulled on the second stair, but couldn't raise a foot to go any farther. She would've scooped him up as he push himself up on the first stair, but I wanted to wait and see how far he could go (under supervision of course).
-I must have changed my 1000th diaper by this point. There's no fanfare.
-It was a lot of fun looking through at pictures of Shane and marveling at how much he's grown and changed already. It's funny how so many of the difficulties have faded from your memory when looking at the pictures.
-There's other cool things, but I can't recall them at the moment. I'll add them later.

There's one big thing I've learned about parenting babies from these past nine months: Every time you think you have the routine down, something changes!

*That is the actual quote. If you know my mom, then you'll recognize her speech patterns. Yes, it's redundant, but she likes it that way I happen to agree. It reminds me of when we used to tell Jazzy that things were "horrible-terrible-bad!"