Beast Mode

So last week, I was working on this post about how my generally sweet, easy-going baby girl had suddenly turned into a beast/monster/little hellion (fill in the blank, really). I questioned what could have possibly happened to cause my toddler to throw needless temper tantrums every two minutes.

We'd put her on the changing table. Tantrum.

We'd try to put her in her high chair. Tantrum.

Leave the house? Tantrum.

Strap her in her car seat? Tantrum.

Pick her up. Tantrum.

Put her down. Tantrum.

Pick her up from daycare? Epic meltdown. (This was, by far, the worst. Working mommy FOR THE WIN.)

It seemed that we really couldn't win with her. No matter what we did, our little girl just wasn't happy.

At first, I thought perhaps she was sick. Surely she must be sick, right? I kind of wanted her to be sick. But she was sleeping fine. Eating fine. No fevers. And, she seemed to be able to turn the crying/screaming/biting (oh, I didn't mention the BITING yet?) fits off as quickly as she could turn them on.

Some of these tantrums were complete with throwing herself on the floor, kicking her legs, rolling around, looking over at us with big crocodile tears for dramatic effect. I was starting to think I should prepare myself to be the parent of a future Oscar winner. So, we were feeling pretty sure that this was just Nora, trying to assert her growing sense of independence. Or expressing her frustration at not yet being able to communicate very efficiently. A stage. This, too, shall pass.

We exercised as much patience as we could muster. And we were actually really patient. But we were also miserable. All of us. When you only really get to spend 2-3 hours a day with your kid (between morning and evening), you don't want to spend that time fighting a kicking, screaming, crying mess of a child. It was hard.

And I found myself wondering, Isn't she too young for this? Because seriously, if this is what tantrums and attitude are like at 14 months old, I'm terrified of the "Terrible Twos," y'all.

It had been maybe 3-4 days of near constant misery. We were about to lose our ever-loving minds. But then something extraordinary happened. Nora flipped the switch back the other way, and she was suddenly back to her normal self. I picked her up from daycare, and once we were home... No tantrums. We had a pleasant evening at the dinner table together. We managed to get her through to bedtime without a single tear.

We were thanking our lucky stars.

Then, yesterday, I was riding in the backseat with her in the car, and playing peek-a-boo and other games with her. I had her laughing big belly laughs, squealing with glee, mimicking me, etc. And there, with her mouth wide open, in the bright light of day, I saw them.

Teeny tiny little white specks poking up out of her gums. And red, swollen marks in not one, not two, but three other spots in her mouth. And possibly two other swollen spots as well.

The girl is cutting 4-6 new teeth. Seemingly all at the same time.

Cue the feelings of being the worst mother in the entire world. I didn't even consider that her antics last week could be teething. I never even gave her ibuprofen to experiment to see if it would make a difference. I just assumed attitude and did... nothing. Nothing, while my poor kid was probably in pain.

I'm just.so.awesome.

In my (half-hearted) defense, I have two points: 1) She only has four teeth--the ones in front, two top, two bottom. Those are supposedly the "easy" ones to cut, so we've never really gone through any sort of teething hell before. I had no idea that it could make them so completely irritable like 24/7, and that teething would manifest itself through constant crying and temper tantrums. And 2) If I hadn't spotted those budding teeth, we probably still wouldn't know what the problem was. But we noticed a drop-off in her appetite this weekend, too, and more hands-in-the-mouth activity.

Now, of course, it all makes perfect sense.

Hindsight is 20/20, you know.