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There are a lot of baby milestones that you look forward to, and some that you sort of dread. The crawling thing is a little anxiety-making sometimes (baby mobility! danger lurking everywhere! must! pay! attention!), but definitely something that I was ready to see happen.

The first tooth, not so much. Time and teeth, however, wait for no mom. I love the completely toothless, huge gummy grin that I get from Abby whenever she’s especially pleased with something. Teeth in a baby smile are a definite indicator that the baby…well, isn’t so much a “baby” anymore.

Abby’s been “teething” for what seems like forever now - the drooling, the irritability, the chewing (oh, the chewing) - but not a tooth to be found. So tonight when I put her down to bed and she kept bolting upright and screaming, I was at a loss. I took her temp (normal), and gave her Ibuprofen anyway. I held her, rocked her, and all was well until I’d put her down again. Her nose was running - whether from the crying or not, who could tell? Broke out the snot-sucker and cleared that out, plugged in the vaporizer in case that might help. (I’ve discovered that sometimes parenting is like taking a very scattershot attack at an unknown, unseen enemy, at best.)

And then, finally, the lightbulb went on. Maybe it’s the teething thing again, we said. So Daddy broke out the Anbesol and stuck his finger in…and there was the tip of a tooth, finally broken through! The end of an era, I suppose…but hopefully now she’ll get some sleep.