Alex has her first loose tooth. It’s almost ready to come out but she didn’t want to yank it out tonight. She didn’t say anything about it and I didn’t notice it until I was brushing her teeth. After school today she was complaining that she was tired and that she had a headache - I think it was must of been the new tooth that was coming in that was making her head hurt.

She got the little tooth box ready that she made in daycare a couple of years ago. Now I just have to figure out what the going rate for a tooth is…

Alex hasn’t been feeling very well since Wednesday afternoon. We went to her music class in the morning and everything was fine - she was smiling and playing and really enjoying herself. Everything got bad during her nap - she was asleep for about 45 minutes when she woke up crying inconsolably - it was almost impossible to comfort her. And it was like she was crying in her sleep - she kept yawning while crying and her eyes were closed. I finally got her back to bed and she slept for about another 40 minutes and then the same thing happened. Since she didn’t even want to put her fingers in her mouth (and she sucks on them all the time) and her gum looked white and sore I decided it was a tooth and gave her some Tylenol. I then got her all comfy in the living room and sat with her while she watched Sesame Street, which always distracts her. (I taped an episode just for emergencies). I thought it was strange, however, that a tooth was bothering her so much because she has gotten so many teeth that we didn’t even know she was getting because there was no indication and she was just as happy as she always is.

Wednesday night after she had been in bed for about 45 minutes the same thing happened. Marc and I couldn’t get her to stop crying so we called the doctor who also thought it was a tooth and said some teeth bother kids more than others. She stayed up for about an hour and then went back to bed - she got up once during the night but wasn’t up for very long - I was glad about this because the way things were going I didn’t think she would be able to sleep at all.

Since Thursday morning she has had a cold - she has a really runny nose (she is SO sick of me wiping it) and a cough. She doesn’t have a fever though and is in a pretty good mood - she’s just quieter and isn’t running around as much as she usually does.

So, it is strange - I still don’t know if she’s getting a new tooth or not or if it was the cold that was bothering her. And I don’t understand why she was crying so hard on Wednesday - maybe she didn’t feel good and couldn’t sleep but was so tired that all she could do was cry. Poor kid.

To make matters worse I woke up on Thurdsday with some sort of stomach bug - I’m feeling a lot better now but with both of us sick the last couple of days have not been very much fun.

Alex hasn’t been feeling very good the last couple of days - I think it’s her teeth. She was working on her upper molars when we were in Vermont and I think she might be getting bottom ones now. She’s ok during the day but seems a little quieter, not so energetic, and more tired. But at night it’s a different story - she’s having trouble falling asleep and has been waking up and crying during the night. Needless to say I am pooped. She didn’t wake up last night so I am hoping that she is starting to feel better.

On Sunday July 20th we noticed that Alex had a new tooth. It is in the upper right middle part of her mouth. It is already pretty big so we really didn’t have any indication that it was coming in. For all I know she had more but it is so hard to look inside her mouth in order to find out.

I got my 8th tooth! My parents didn’t even notice it until Tuesday May 13th - it was already pretty big so they had no idea that I was even working on a new tooth. I guess that is because I am so tough and I didn’t fuss about it, cry, wake up in the middle of the night or get a fever. I hate getting teeth - it hurts!!! But on the positive side teeth make it so much easier to eat yummy goldfish crackers.

Alex was completely miserable on Monday March 17th - tooth number 6 was still coming in and tooth number 7 decided to rear it’s ugly head. She was in so much pain that she couldn’t sleep or play. She was ok when she was eating and when I would sit on the porch with her. It got even worse at bedtime and she cried from 8pm - 10 pm. I started to worry that something else might be wrong because she had never had that strong of a reaction from teething and we even called the pediatrician. I finally told Marc that I needed a break and that I was going to go rest because she was probably going to be up a lot of the night. And a couple of minutes later she passed out in Marc’s arms. She got up a couple of times during the night but did a lot better than I anticipated. The next day she was much better except she was exhausted from having such a bad day the day before.

13 more teeth to go … I hope she doesn’t get anymore for a least a couple of weeks.

Yesterday, March 15th, Alex woke up around 7:30am and was in a great mood. By 9:30am, however, she was really cranky and I thought that maybe she was really tired and needed to take an early nap. By 11am she was unable to sleep, crying and fairly inconsolable and that was I finally realized that she was getting her 6th tooth! I also have a bad cold and didn’t really feel up for it but then decided that she might as well be miserable at the same time as me - that way we wouldn’t ruin a good day for each other

I was also a beautiful day (in the 50’s) so after she had lunch and still couldn’t sleep Marc and I took her to the park in her stroller. She thought this was really fun and distracted her from the fact that she didn’t feel good. We stayed for over an hour and when we got home around 2:30 she finally slept for about an hour and a half. By the time she got up and had dinner she was feeling a lot better. She woke up a couple of times during the night but did a lot better than I thought she would. This morning when I got up I realized that this happened on the Ides of March, which is a strange coincidence since she hadn’t had a tooth since February 1st.

Grandma Alma has been dubbed the tooth fairy - the last two times she has come over to babysit we have found a new tooth either before or after she leaves. We noticed Alex’s 5th tooth on Saturday morning - I was SO glad because she was really crabby on Friday and I wasn’t sure what the problem was. So far I only see one - I keep expecting another because she has been getting them in sets of two. She does really good when grandma babysits - Alma has been coming over every other Saturday and Marc and I go to the movies or just get out of the house. This last time, however, Alex cried when we left - I guess separation anxiety is setting in.

When Grandma got here Alex “crawled” right over to her - it was so cute.

Alex seems to be getting her teeth in sets of two. Monday night she was miserable and we noticed that one of the top front teeth was poking through and on Tuesday morning I noticed the second one. She is having a really hard time with it … she is making really funny faces because it hurts and she has had a mild fever. Plus, she is SO grumpy - especially at night. She is SO tired but can’t fall asleep because she doesn’t feel good and has been up until 11pm. The funny thing is once she gets to sleep she stays in bed until 6am - she is probably so exhausted that she doesn’t keep waking up like usual.

I haven’t seen the teeth since the first glimpse - she won’t let me look at them. I guess she is going to get two teeth a month … I think her fever has broken so hopefully she will feel better today,

I hope all Alex wants for Christmas is her two front teeth because that is what she is going to get. Last night when she was really upset we noticed that her lower left front tooth had come in. But I think that was actually bothering her a couple of days ago when she didn’t feel good from her shots because a little while ago I noticed that the lower right front tooth was just breaking through the gum - that is probably what was bothering her last night. She sure is going through a lot in one week.

She woke up a couple of times last night and was crying pretty hard but went back to sleep without too much trouble. Today it is like the best of times and the worst of times - one minute she is crying because her mouth hurts and the next she is laughing. She has laughed more today than ever before - she as cracking up when Marc was feeding her lunch (we aren’t sure why) and then again when she was playing with her MooCow. I hope she keeps laughing a lot because her laugh is SO cute.