JUST TEETHING YOU

These strange sounds have been coming out of my son’s mouth lately, and I am fairly sure I do not like it. The sounds come complete with a liquid substance streaming out of his eyes. My wife said it resembles what some call “crying.”

Yes, young Parker is going through a bit of a spell right now, and it is quite unusual, because he very rarely gets upset. We’re talking about a kid who, when he got a shot one time, stared at the nurse and ripped the Band-Aid off. The boy is solid.

Like most things, his stoicism is a combination of nature and nurture. He has always been a fairly laid-back kid. On the first ultrasound we saw of him, he was reading a Deepak Chopra book. Even when he started walking (and therefore falling often), he kept the tears to a minimum. I have always been the kind of parent to loudly applaud spectacular but harmless spills by children. You know the kind – it’s when they’re first learning to walk and their torso gets ahead of them and they suddenly go into an extended roll. You know they’re not hurt, and if they see you enjoying the Three Stooges routine, they will, no doubt, keep the tears in check. Lest you think I am heartless, I feel comfortable in my knowledge in what a serious spill is. Having spent about 40 percent of my youth in the emergency room, I think I am well qualified. I don’t applaud if one of my kids fall and, say, leaves most of a kneecap on the sidewalk.

So he never fussed when he fell. In fact, he often did it for fun. And he also learned to tolerate a certain amount of roughhousing from his sister. Despite my wife and I keeping eagle-eye attention on both children, it is amazing how fast a 3-year-old can fit her baby brother under a futon.

So we definitely knew something was wrong the other day when he began making it very clearly known that he was unhappy. Since he was born, it was easy to soothe him: Feed him, change him, give him a toy truck, or some combination of those three would always bring a smile to his face. But he was just inconsolable. If you were walking with him, he wanted to sit. If you sat, he wanted you to walk. Nothing seemed to make it better.

We quickly found out what the problem was. Teething. And I say “teething” because it has to be in the plural. The Dude had eight – eight! – teeth cutting through, two on each side, top and bottom.

Folks, there is just no way to maintain a positive disposition with about a third of your teeth cutting through your gums. During one point in the day, Parker finally found something that made him happy – some of those cheap rubber balls that you can get at the grocery store and last until you step on it in the middle of the night, making a sound similar to a riffle shot when it pops. I had gotten a couple of them during my last grocery store visit with my children. Whenever I got to the grocery store, I use bribery as the primary method to encourage good behavior. Each aisle has another distraction that keeps the kids happy.

My wife can send me to the store for milk and I will rack up a $200 grocery bill. So Parker and Allie both got a ball. When Parker began playing with both of them, Allie saw this and quickly reminded me that the purple one was hers. When she took the purple ball, Parker showed what he thought of this by lying on his side and forming a puddle of tears on the floor.

Now, I am a big fan of sharing. If you have two toys, and someone wants to play with one, it is considered good form in my house to offer up one of the toys. And I am not for depriving one child of a toy just to placate another. But desperate times call for desperate measures. I told Allie that, yes, it was her purple ball, and Parker SHOULD ideally share. But he was feeling really, really bad, and it would do great things to allow Daddy to stay on this side of the sanity fence if, just for a little bit, he got to play with both of them.

Allie sat for a moment, ball in hand. She looked at Parker. And looked at me. And, showing her compassion and love for her brother, she said, “Can I have a popsicle?”

Deal.

I am hoping that the teeth hurry up and come on through so that he can get back to his feel-good self. I know he’s miserable, and I really want him to feel better. Also, I’m running low on popsicles.