Teeth and sleep, sleep and teeth

As I mentioned previously, we are growin' some teefies up in here.

If you've been paying attention to Facebook, you know this is not an enjoyable experience for Peyton or for myself.

It's funny because Denny's mom told me how he got his eye teeth first. If anything, our daughter is the spitting image of her father, so I swore she would most likely take after him in her teething process as well. I was so focused on those upper gummies of hers that I paid absolutely no attention to any other area of her mouth. So convinced, I was. EYE TEETH ARE COMING FIRST.

I was also so wrong, but it's not the first time I've been mistaken, nor will it be the last (pshhh).

About two weeks ago I was doing my normal check, feeling, of course, only her upper gums, pep talking those little teeth into existence. Then Peyton BIT ME, and I felt a little nubbin on her lower gum. That thing was so effing sharp I actually cried out in a mixture of surprise and pain.

So there was a tooth. Where most babies get them. Bottom gum, front and center.

All downhill from there.

Peyton had actually been doing quite well with her sleeping. After a lot of thought and sleeplessness and TOTAL AND UTTER DEVASTATION (exaggeration) at night, I finally caved and tried the Ferber method of sleep training (am I alone in constantly thinking "Fockerize" every time I hear about the Ferber method?). Ferber encourages timed check-ins to let baby know you haven't disappeared forever, but my check-ins only induced hysteria the likes of which I have never seen and did more harm than good. Eventually I had to tearfully (both of us) leave her in her crib, tell her I loved her a million times, and then sit and wait for the crying to stop. After about a week, we could put her down and she'd be asleep in five minutes.

But I digress. Because then TEETH HAPPENED.

Alllllllll downhill.

I couldn't just let my baby CRY while her MOUTH HURT. That's barbaric. And then she got sick. I couldn't let my baby CRY because she's SICK, DAMNIT. So back we went, rocking and nursing until she was sound asleep. I undid all my hard, stressful (seriously, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do) work. I would try to put her down, sound asleep, but NOW the second she hit the mattress, her little eyes popped open.

PARTY TIME.

Gentle encouragement, that "no, darling, this is not playtime, this is sleep time" does not translate well to babies. I am such a sucker for that quivering lip and tear-filled eyes.

A huge sucker.

Now I make excuses:

"She's getting her second tooth; she's in pain."

"She had a fever on Friday!" (it's TUESDAY.)

"She misses me already!"

"I just changed her crib sheet. She must not like the pattern."

Now we're back at square one.

But baby is better now, no more nasty cold and the fluid in her ear must have miraculously disappeared because no symptoms of an ear infection ever popped up. And now, since Sunday night, we are enduring the brutality that is bedtime in our household, trying to get my baby to sleep on her own again.

And tooth number two is coming in, guns a-blazing.

I have the strange feeling that the next few months are going to be a vicious cycle of sleep, teeth, no sleep, rinse, repeat.

But did I mention that those teeth are freaking ADORABLE? I love me some gummy baby smiles, but there's something about those two little teeth that KILL ME.

Thing 1 and Thing 2, I've named them.

Chaos, just chaos

We're still alive over here.

Things have been, in a word, INSANE since Thanksgiving. I'm further embracing my inner Martha Stewart and getting way too crafty for my own good. Making lots of gifts homemade this year, which is awesome and it makes me feel pretty darn productive.The dining room table has taken a hit though, since it's currently where I'm storing all my goodies.

My goal was to ultimately finish up my shopping/crafting this week so I could enjoy the week preceding Christmas and do Christmas-y things and just relax. But I'm realizing my slacker self would have benefitted immensely from, oh I don't know, maybe starting my Christmas shopping and planning back in OCTOBER.

This is pretty much my train of thought once October hits:

"Oh wow, Halloween is in a few weeks. Can't believe the holidays are so soon! I should at least START my shopping."
"Oh wow, it's Halloween...candy! No shopping yet, but I still have all of November. I'm golden!"
"November 1st, turkey soon! Maybe I should just start picking up just one gift a week."
"Thanksgiving! Well, I haven't gotten anything yet, so I might as well try out Black Friday and see how that works out."
"It's December already! Good thing I got TWO WHOLE GIFTS on Black Friday." (This one is actually somewhat false. I finished all my shopping for baby and absolutely no one else, HAAAAA.)

Next thing I know it's December 16 with all this to do:

Finish shopping
Finish homemade gifts
Wrap all of the above
Bake a crap-ton of cookies
Physically and mentally prepare for the whirlwind that will be December 24th and 25th.

It really doesn't seem like a lot when I write it out, but throw a sick baby (POOR BABY!) and a sick mommy (POOR ME!) into the mix and it seems pretty daunting. With only eight days left.

Once it's all done it'll feel pretty good. But in the meantime I am locking myself in the house and turning this place into a veritable Santa's workshop.

I WILL PUT THE FAT MAN IN RED TO SHAME.

SHAAAAAAAAAME.

PS: Peyton now crawls, sits up, AND has two teeth. I feel inclined to reiterate how much teething sucks, but those little baby teefies are ADORABLE.

PPS: I can't wait until we move into a big big house where I can host holiday festivities and everyone will come to ME.