Posts Tagged teeth
Jaws Part II
Welcome to Beyond the Car Seat’s Body Part Week. Today we turn our attention to the mouth. LTD has long used his mouth to explore and to vocalize loudly (especially in the library) and for the last few weeks he has been using his mouth to vent his frustrations. He has turned his gaping maw into a living weapon and focused his rage on my arm, the couch, the coffee table and just about anything else that gets in his way. That’s right, I’m talking about biting. LTD is growing up and getting in touch with his emotions unfortunately he is also getting in touch with his teeth and my pant leg.
It is interesting to watch why he bites as it is clearly not done out of malice, but true frustration. It’s not like conflict resolution is going to help here, he can’t just ‘use his words’. Thankfully, the little guy doesn’t do all the time and he seems to understand enough to stop when we make him. However, occasionally when I hold him and he is trying to be funny he will lean his head back, get a crazy look in his eye, open his mouth wide and drift forward to chew on my face. I guess they really are making every movie 3D these days.
Eruption
LTD hit his first year and so now his first year is hitting back. Welcome to first year molars and the little guy is not happy about it. When his front teeth came in he was in pain, but powered through it and his teething episodes didn’t last long. Well, things have changed. The front teeth with their shark shape cut through relatively quickly and with a certain aerodynamic flare. The molars, however, look like Mt. Everest and seem almost as big. When I look in LTD’s mouth and see the new tooth/mountain range forming my teeth start to hurt.
LTD usually gets a low fever when he is teething, but Tylenol seems to help. Another side effect of the teething process is LTD’s desire to bite and chew on anything that comes near his maw area. We definitely have a Jaws situation starting to occur and we definitely are going to need a bigger boat. Lastly, he wakes up for short periods for brief crying spells through the night. All in all not a big deal except when I go put his pacifier back in at three in the morning he goes right back to sleep and I’m up for another hour. Perhaps I should watch the Dwayne Johnson movie, The Tooth Fairy, I’m pretty sure that would put me right to sleep.
Product Review – Tooth Tissues
Posted by Proud Dad in Product Review on February 24, 2010
A wise man once said that with great power comes great responsibility. An even wiser man said, if you take care of your teeth they will take care of you. LTD sports eight little chompers now and since he can’t take care of them, The Mommy and I must do it for him. Sadly, I confess that I have transferred my forgetting to floss my own teeth to forgetting to clean his. We have this little rubber thing that goes on your finger that looks like the thing that helps you sort office papers, but he bites down on it crushing your finger and you have to wash it after each use. When we do remember to clean his pearly whites, we use Tooth Tissues by My Dentist’s Choice. These disposable wipes were designed by two parents who happen to be…wait for it…dentists. The wipes are fluoride and paraben-free because some research has shown that babies shouldn’t’ have too much fluoride; instead the wipes use xylitol, known as nature’s little cavity warrior. I think because they are wipes we remember to use them. Since we spend so much time wiping different parts of the little guy, it fits nicely with the pattern. The next step is taking him to his first dentist appointment. I’m excited about it since kids and dentists go together like floss and me forgetting to.
Can’t Find it Grind it
Posted by Proud Dad in Baby on Board on February 9, 2010
When you take care of a baby 60 hours a week every moment can easily turn into an adventure. Some of the escapades can be fun, some can be scary and some can 
be just grim. The introduction of yogurt to LTD’s
diet has had an unintended side effect. He has taken to grinding his teeth. He makes this horrible noise mostly when he feels that I haven’t had a headache in a while. I can’t stress enough how creepy it is when a baby grinds his teeth. First, you think he is hurting himself and when you realize he’s not you can’t do anything else but focus on the grinding noise and in the end all you can do is tell him to stop which has the same effect as if you told him to take a calculus test entirely in Dutch.
Thankfully the grinding isn’t harmful to his teeth, but the only treatment is waiting for him to grow out of it. I said this already but I think it bear repeating, just to make it perfectly clear to everyone, that the grinding sounds brutal and awful. Additionally, I will again also stress that it sounds creepy as well.
Book Review – Doctor De Soto
Posted by Proud Dad in Book Review on October 16, 2009
Doctor De Soto, first published in 1982, by Newbery Honor recipient William Steig tells the saga of dentist to the animals, Dr. De Soto and his assistant wife. The De Sotos are mice, but they treat all animals big and small. All animals except cats and other mouse addicted creatures. Of course there can be no drama without conflict and one day a fox with a bad toothache asks for help. Against their better judgment and to honor the Hippocratic oath, the De Sotos pull the fox’s tooth and agree to make him a new one to be put in the next day. We hear the fox’s thoughts and he is totally going to eat the two mouse members of the dental practice after they fix his tooth. The thing is, the De Sotos totally know it too, but feel obligated to finish the job. While Dr. De Sotos solution to the problem isn’t really sweet revenge, but it comes close.
The book reminds us of the important Godfather lesson, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Steig also has fun with the old fable of the Frog and the Scorpion. He deals with the nature of animal instincts and turns it on its head to show us a better way then the cold embrace of death. Finally, an important lesson about the importance of mercy is delivered reflected in the way the De Sotos chose to resolve the hidden motive of the fox. We all knew that mice made great dentists, but I didn’t expect them to be so clever as well.
Tag, You’re It
Posted by Proud Dad in Baby on Board on October 6, 2009
So I am super glad that I spend all my time and energy, not to mention money, on trying to find LTD awesome and cool toys to play with. Why am I glad? Because he could care less, all he seems to care about are their tags. I mean he really goes nuts for them. Not only does he suck on them, he really stares and studies them for long periods. Hopefully, that means he can start doing the laundry soon. I guess The Mommy should make him a tag blanket, but I’m sure it would be just our luck that he won’t want it because he could sense we were trying to put one over on him. Sometimes I wonder if it is safe to suck so much on the tags, wouldn’t it be ironic if the companies took all this care to make their products child safe and environmentally friendly, but the laundry tags were harmful. Lets hope not.