Something to calm the soul

Poor little Sabrina bean hasn’t been doing much of this lately. In fact for the last week she hasn’t slept at all unless she’s in the arms of someone she trusts. Three times last week I had to take her out of our bed and sit rocking her in the dark and oh so eerily quiet at 3 o’clock in the morning, family room, just so that Glenn could get enough sleep to scrape through the next day at work. It wasn’t like she woke up either, just writhed around and let out a series of savage guttural moans, or, just to shake it up a few glass shattering screams all with her eyes shut to the world.

And me? I acted like a naive first time mother and worried and stresses and burst into tears (I think the last one was simply due to sleep depravation). To be fair though, she had rolled immediately into this behaviour straight off the back of the flu, an ear infection and a nasty reaction to the antibiotics that were meant to help her. So it wasn’t until yesterday when two little yellowy bumps with pin prick sized slits appeared in them that I realized what we had been dealing with. Teething, you’ve gotta be kidding me Bubby, all that was just teething.

You’d think by the fourth child I’d have this all figured out but it has been four years and to be honest I can only remember Lani having any trouble. Boy did she have trouble, we were living in a yurt out the back of my parents house when Lani cut her first tooth (I’ll explain the yurt thing later, If i don’t, I’ll have forgotten and you can ask me). Once we got over the bizarre and totally freaked out idea that she would spend the night peacefully in her own cot and let her commandeer our bed, Lani was usually a good sleeper. That is until one night after a day of showing no discomfort what so ever she sat up in bed and let out the most blood curdling scream you have ever heard. I remember at the time in the midst of the panic you get when you are suddenly wrenched out of sleep thinking that she had a career path as a horror movie scream-over girl laid out before her (I had just watched a documentary on a mother daughter movie scream duo, believe it or not it pays alright apparently). Lani’s scream woke the entire house hold and the rest of the night was spent passing the hysterically screaming and stiff as a board child between my Mum, Dad, Glenn and myself until she suddenly stoped. And I mean stoped, her breathing returned to normal, the tension melted out of her limbs and most importantly she made no more noise. All the adults were just left there looking at each other, then it was, right well, I guess we all go back to sleep now. In the morning, Ta Da, big reveal, there was her first tooth (bet ya didn’t see that coming) But that was it and that’s the only teething horror story I’ve had ’till now and it didn’t drag on for a week.

I may sound a tad grumpy but its just the bleary way I’m looking at the world at the moment. Really I’m ecstatic and also a little apprehensive that her teeth are finally coming in. You see when she was born, the first Doc. that checked her over said she had natal teeth because her top gum was covered with hard white lumps. The second said they were cysts and not to worry to much. The third said that they were probably cysts but that they might hinder the development of her actual teeth. the last one I asked to have a look at them said, well, she might not get teeth at all. All off them said. "oh, I’ve never seen anything like that before" Don’t ya love it when medical professionals say that. So all those wonderfully positive comments and the fact that all the other kids had at least 6 teeth by now have been making me a little nirvy about teh whol;e teething thing. I only hope after we watch these pin prick slits widen to allow her teeth trough its Doc. number two that wins the prise.