Mark Twain once said "Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was that they escaped teething." After living with Greyden for the past few days, I believe that God knew exactly what he was doing when he opted to avoid this stage. So how do we know that Greyden is teething? Easy! The same way I knew he was teething back when he was 4 months old. 6 months old. 7 months old. He is clearly exibiting the vast majority of the teething symptoms below.

Signs of Teething:

1) Do the gums look a little red and swollen? Well, if we could get into his mouth to see his gums, then I'm sure we'd find this to be the case. Unfortunately every time we even try to put our fingers near his mouth, he clamps his lips shut tighter than Fort Knox. (Did you know that it is physically impossible to pry a baby's mouth open? Neither did I.) I did manage to get my finger in there a couple of times last night when he wasn't expecting it and felt a small, swollen bump on his right, lower gum. I was so excited to finally have an answer to the "where did this psycho child come from?" question, that I called Kevin over to verify my finding. Kevin promptly confirmed that he too felt the swollen bump. On the left side. But at least we're on the same page that somewhere in his mouth there is some swelling going on, right? At this point I'll take what I can get.

2) The Drool Monster - If you looked closely at some of Greyden's pictures from the 4th of July you may have noticed that, judging from the neckline of his clothes, his bottom lip appeared to have developed a slow leak. Well, it isn't any better now than it was back then. Every day when I pick him up from daycare they have a bib on him. He's not any better at home either, although I never remember to put the bib on him, which results in multiple costume changes between getting home from daycare and bed time. 

3) Fever / Diarrhea - This one we're only battling with half of, and thankfully it's only the fever half. Greyden got sent home from school with a temperature of 101.2 on Monday. By the time I got him to the doctor an hour later it was 98.7. It was very fun trying to explain to the doctor why I made an emergency appointment for her to see my perfectly healthy son. On the positive side it meant that he could go to daycare the following day with a doctor's note. On the negative side it meant that he could go to daycare the following day with a doctor's note. (As you can probably guess, I didn't think of it in the negative side until my alarm was telling me to get my ass out of bed at 6:30 the following morning after being up all night with Sir Crabby Paddy.) Which brings us to the next symptom: 

4) Sleep? What's Sleep? - Junior has gone from going to sleep in under 15 minutes to a hot screaming mess for the majority of the evening. He will be happy as a clam until we get him into his pjs and start to feed him. Then he's screaming and arching his back trying to roll away. After we finally get him to sleep (which involves a lot of rocking and in some instances getting him back up for 30 minutes or so before trying the process again) he cries out or fusses in his sleep about every 10-30 minutes, sometimes even waking up enough that we have to go in and rub his back or give him his pacifier, which may or may not wake him up even more. Add that to his waking up 2 more times each night after the 2 hour bedtime process and we're exhausted, as is he. For the first time that I can remember, he woke up crying on Wednesday. Normally he wakes up and talks to himself or turns on his music box. Not today. Today he was very unhappy about being awake. Or maybe he was just unhappy about being in his crib. Regardless it took us about 20 minutes before he was his normal, smiley self. Which, again, brings us to our next symptom:

5) Mr. Crabby Paddy - No, I'm not talking about Kevin here (although I could slip him under this same heading. Work stress + No sleep = a Daddy who seems to think that every hour is cause for happy hour.) According to Greyden's teachers, he hasn't been himself lately. He always gets a little crabby during the day, but it's mainly only when the teachers are feeding another baby and not him. Or playing with another baby and not him. Or holding another baby and not him. Or...well..you get the picture. In the last couple of days they've told me he's been relatively subdued (I'm not sure why they think this is a bad thing?) which is why they were so quick to call me when he spiked his fever on Monday. By the time I got him to the doctor's office, he was laughing, yelling, and having a great time. He remained that way all afternoon, even playing in his jumparoo and pack 'n play for extended periods by himself. (And by extended, I mean more than 3 minutes before shrieking at us to pick him up. At least until that evening rolled around. Please refer to symptom 4.)

6) Constant Coughing - He has had a lingering cough for about a week and a half now. Our visit to the doctor confirmed that he had a slightly stuffy nose, but that's it. His ears, throat, and chest were all fine. I'm pretty sure that the doctor was wondering why in the hell I was wasting her time too.

7) Ear Tugging and Cheek Rubbing - He has both of these symptoms. As I said in #6, we've already confirmed that his ears are fine and show no signs of an ear infection. And he's been rubbing his mouth and cheeks with the back of his hand non-stop for the last few days, which I don't mind until it's dinner time and he is rubbing his peas all over his head. Grrr.

8) Chewing on EVERYTHING - This is another symptom we haven't had to deal with, however I'm also not too surprised. Greyden's never been a big chewer or biter (except for those few unfortunate times while nursing, but that's another post). He prefers to pick up a toy, act like he's going to chew on it, and instead give it a quick lick and set it aside. And no, I'm not exactly sure why he does it this way, but I'm hopeful that it will continue at least until he gets past the chewing on the crib railing stage. I'd like the $$$ crib to last a little longer please.

9) Bye Bye Appetite - He's gone from taking 15 ounces of milk per day at daycare to 11-13 ounces for the past week or so to a total of 6 ounces for the past two days. I'm not too worried about him starving because he's not acting hungry and he's still nursing like a champ. And the doctor's office said he weighs 18 pounds, which is up a half a pound from 3 weeks ago. My only issue with it is that I'm working so damn hard to make the milk (and barely managing to scrape by with just enough each day) that I'm far from happy about having to dump out 3-4 ounces each time he doesn't finish a bottle. Also, him acting like he's being poisoned every time we try to give him a bottle is slightly unnerving.

10) Because I say so - "He must be teething." An over-used phrase that can be as easily translated as: "I have no idea what is wrong with him."