It’s only 2:50 and it’s been a day.  Matthew is teething like crazy – drool down his shirt constantly, fussy tantrums at the drop of a hat, refusal to eat food that isn’t super soft.  We had a rather fussy weekend and we weren’t sure if it was just him getting to know himself more (that’s my nice way of saying, becoming defiant) or if it was his teeth.

It’s both.

Matthew is in pain – that is clear.  I can see his canine teeth on both the top and bottom trying to come through, and I can’t imagine how awful that feels.  I try not to medicate him during the day – I’d rather not if he can get through it.  Today though?  I dosed him at 12:00 so it would be nice and soaked into his system by 1:00.  I delayed his nap a while because he FINALLY stopped crying and settled down to CG back in our bedroom while I ate pizza.  YES – it’s that bad of a day that I ate PIZZA for god’s sake.  In my defense (is there really a defense for such an offense?), I have wanted pizza for weeks now and it just had to be done – so why not on a day when it would feel like a justified reward?

It was good.  And worth it.  (So was the Diet Pe.psi!)

We learned over the weekend what Matthew’s new favorite thing IN.THE.WHOLE.WORLD is and it’s causing quite a problem for us.  Twice now, we’ve let him ride in my lap just a block from the neighbors’ to our house, and he loves this beyond belief.  Now he wants to get in the front seat all the time.  If you take him out to the car to load him up, he throws an absolute fit if he can’t sit in the front seat first and push some buttons.  This happens at home, at the grocery store, EVERYWHERE.

I let him knock himself out yesterday while B talked with our neighbor out front.  Matthew found the buttons to open the garage doors and turn on the dome lights.  This kept him busy for a long time and resulted in a major fit when the time came to load him up in his seat.  He freaked out again when we were coming home from our friends’ house.  And last night, B took him out to the garage just to play in the car because he wanted him to have something fun to do.  This resulted in a colossal melt down when they came back in the house.

I felt so bad for Matthew and his teeth today that I let him play in the front seat after we came home from Tar.get.  He hated being in his car seat, in the cart, and back in his car seat so I thought I’d give him something fun to do.  Did I NOT learn from B’s experience last night?  Apparently not.  While playing, he was at his happiest.  Upon coming inside, he had a melt down of mammoth proportions.

So teeth or “finding himself?”  I think we’re dealing a bit more with “finding himself” than teeth right now, but I’ll continue to blame it on teething in hopes that this phase quickly disappears.  I don’t know how much more I can take.  His fits just make me so sad and all I want to do is hug him and make it all better, but I can’t do that.  I need to set and stick to boundaries.  It’s killing me.

This is hard stuff.  Staying home is great and all, but it’s not always a picnic!  Some days are really hard to get through lately and I just wish his damned teeth would pop through so that we can put THAT behind us for now.

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