It's all about teeth

Yesterday there was NOT joy in my journey. James has four teeth growing in and it is not agreeing with him. I finally resorted to teething tablets and then tylenol to try to get him to sleep. It's so easy to be mad when things do go the way I want. It's definitely easier than finding joy in moments where I don't get to eat because I can't put my child down, or having to resort to eating standing up with the plate on the microwave so it's the right height so I can balance him on one hip and turn to eat with the other hand...and then a daughter whose upset because I never get to play with her because the baby is always crying or eating. Then the times I have to resort to letting the baby watch TV (which I said I wouldn't allow until he was older) just so he will lay still on his back and not scream for 1 minute so I can get a diaper on. At least it was Sesame Street...since Bekah was watching that so she would stop being upset about me not playing with her and stop being upset that the five minutes I did play "Chutes and Ladders" with her while spoon feeding the baby dinner I ended up winning so it was a huge deal that I always win and she never does and she always gets the slides and I always get the ladders (can you just image the over-generalizing and drama we're in for in the teenage years?!). How can you rig that game so your kid can gain confidence and win? That's one that just doesn't seem to lend itself well to trying not to win. Anyway--although I usually set limits on things like TV and computer games, there are some days when you let it go just to keep your sanity.

What I see today is that maybe I couldn't see joy in the exact moment but I can see it the next day--and that's pretty close to the moment. After at least five hours of sleep everything seems more manageable. After all, it's not James fault that his teeth are hurting. Sometimes I think why did God make it so babies HAVE to hurt. They can't even communicate why they're hurting. It doesn't seem fair. Bekah put it well a couple weeks ago. She lost her first tooth several weeks ago and it's already growing back in. She had a health class in school recently about teeth and taking care of them (March was some kind of Dental Health Month). James is growing teeth. Bekah was worried about the tooth fairy and after putting all this together she said, "Mom, it's all about teeth, isn't it."

It always makes me feel better when Bekah and I sit down and read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. 

"It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

My mom says some days are like that.

Even in Australia."

It's pretty humbling when your 5-year old tells you "Mom, you're just having a hard day."

And at the end of the day, everything seemed to not matter so much when I sat on the couch and watched my almost 9-month old decide he wanted the cell phone so bad he crawled for the first time! Pretty neat. Then he proceeded to call Grandma all by himself. He's growing up too fast.