Chomp, Chomp, Chewy Chomp!

I know, I know. I haven’t posted in quite some time, but with the holidays going on and life in general, things have been pretty busy. Now that the holidays are over, I have had a chance to slow down and look back on them. All in all, they were decent and one of the big highlights was…Ryan finally got his first tooth!

Actually, the little man got two teeth, the first came the day after Christmas and the second came on New Year’s Day, and I’m sure that more are on the way. Like I said in my past post about teething, it’s a bitch and the whole teething process is not very much fun for everyone involved, especially Ryan since he’s little body goes all nuts when it’s happening. There’s snot pouring from his nose, poop shooting out his butt, and then the pain that he has to deal with. I’ve never seen him stick his hands in his mouth as much as he has over the last few weeks and what’s worse than that is he just hasn’t been happy. Normally, he’s all smiley and giggly, yet with the teething going on, he’s been cranky and it’s tough to see.

We’ve tried to help him through it the best we can, giving him medicine to help ease the pain. Some of the things we’ve tried include teething tablets, teething gel, infant fever/pain reducer medicine, and when all else failed, we rubbed brandy on his gums. Yes, I realize the last one probably isn’t an approved method, however, it did help him and he was all chipper and happy afterwards! So, we’re going to use it again if nothing else seems to help.

The little man dealing with the teething process. Poor little guy!

Along with giving him medicine, we’ve also provided all sorts of things for him to chew on to help his teeth break through. He never really liked the teething ring we gave him, but he did enjoy chewing on all the toys on his exersaucer along with his little teddy bear, stuffed orange that laughs, and Dave’s finger. Out of all of the things that we let him chew on, his favorite was indeed Dave’s finger and he would start chewing on that at every given opportunity! :) Kind of funny, especially because the little guy can bite down pretty darn good, something I’ve experience myself while letting him bite on my finger. Can we say, ouch!!

The two teeth that he got over the last two weeks are right in front on the bottom and they aren’t quite showing yet enough for us to get a good picture of them. Plus, it doesn’t help that he loves to squirm when we have tried to take his picture! We’re waiting for some teeth to come in on top and when that happens, hopefully we can get a picture of him with a full on smile with his new chompers!

Well, that’s about all I got for today, I promise that I’m going to blog a bit more in the New Year. So, make sure to check back soon! 

                

Teething is a bitch...

There’s not if’s, an’s or but’s about it, teething is a bitch for infants. Seriously, it’s horrible and frustrating and yes, this mom is pretty much at her wit’s end!!!

Currently, the only time that my son Ryan doesn’t cry is when he’s sleeping. Otherwise, it’s tears and screams and I just want this tooth to break through his swollen gums so he can feel better. I mean like, holy buckets, he has cried more in the past four days than he has during the four and a half months of his entire life.I'm not kidding, he cries so much that it almost makes me cry. :(

Ryan's arsenal of teething toys!

He’s typically a happy and chill little dude, but not now, nope, he’s all over the place and it’s been crazy to try and handle. It makes me feel like I’m a bad mother given that I can’t help ease his pain. Sure, we’ve tried the teething toys along with giving him some weird Oral gel stuff to put on his gums, yet, it just kind of masks everything that he’s going through for a few minutes and we end up right back where we started with him being uncomfortable. It’s a vicious cycle and I just try to comfort him the best that I can by holding him and doing the momma bounce all around the living room. Sometimes it helps, other times not, and one thing that I’ve found out is he really loves it when I sing to him, so, if he’s totally going off crying with the whole lip quiver thing, I start singing and he actually likes it. It makes me smile to see him kind of happy when he’s dealing this sharp little razor blade breaking through his gums. 

Oh and one thing that I forgot to mention with how much teething is not fun is all the snot that has been pouring out of Ryan’s nose and the drool that has been ooking out of his mouth. I had no idea that one little kid could produce so many bodily fluids. We now have two separate burp clothes to clean up the mess so we don’t cross-contaminate because we don’t want him to end up getting a cold, which he kind of has already. We know this because Dave and I took him to see our pediatrician due to the fact that Ryan was running a fever and that we thought he was teething. The pediatrician told us that Ryan had a bit of a cold and that he was in fact teething. He said that we had to really watch everything we do with him so the cold doesn’t get worse. That means, sucking out snot from his nose (which he hates), standing in a hot, steamy bathroom with him with the shower with him to help with the snot drainage, running a vaporizer in his room, and giving him cold medicine every once and awhile to keep his fever in check. So far, it all seems to be working. :) 

What’s keeping me from going off the deep end and going completely insane during my son’s teething is Dave. Without him, I don’t think I could take Ryan being so unhappy and his support has been pretty outstanding. We take turns holding and comforting the little man, taking over for each other when it becomes too much. I’m going to be honest here, having our son scream and cry and snot and drool and cry and drool and cry and scream and cry and snot can be a bit much at times. However, because we are doing it with each other’s help, it’s been way easier to deal with. Thanks honey, love you!

With that, I’m going to end this post for the day! Hopefully the next time I blog, it will be about Ryan officially getting his first tooth! :) Geez, I’m hoping it happens soon!