Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Tooth Day!

The boyos are just a few days shy of their six month birthday, and lo and behold, both are sprouting teeth! Well, more accurately, one tooth. Each.

Gus, of course, has been "teething" for about three months now, first with that cyst that looked like a little white tooth point (and which has now disappeared, just as Dr. Pixie predicted) and more lately, with -- apparently -- real teeth. Gus has become very familiar with the taste of grape-flavored Infant Tylenol, since when his mouth really hurts, nothing else calms him down. I had thought that Sam wasn't teething at all yet, since he doesn't cram his hand in his mouth and howl the way Gus often does -- but maybe, like the rest of his father's clan, he's just not a complainer. (Most of my birth family are not complainers, but I'll admit that I am! If I'm in pain, I figure everyone around me gets to help with the burden. It seems that Gus shares my philosophy.)

Today I ran my finger around Gus's gums for the umpteenth time, since that seems to help the discomfort, and felt a hard little something right in front on his lower jaw. Closer examination revealed the very beginnings of a beautiful sharp little tooth! You'd have thought I had discovered uranium. I ran down the hall calling for my husband. "Look, look! He's got a tooth!" D understandably took this in stride, since Gus has indeed been teething for months now. But there was something about actually seeing the tooth that just floored me. Is this a remnant of going through infertility? Will I always be skeptical about progress until the the evidence is squarely before me?

In any case, after I forced D to stop work and come out of our office to admire Gus's tooth, I thought to check Sam's mouth -- and right there, center front, was the duplicate of Gus's tooth! Same exact location, same amount of tiny little sharp tooth sticking out. It's true that the boys are twins, so this might not be considered remarkable, but they're dizygotic (fraternal) twins, so there's no real reason for them to be teething at the same time and in the same location. But it sure is cute. (And yes, of course D had to make the trip down the hallway again to admire Sam's tooth! Silly question.)

In other news, our cat Buster (who once belonged to a woman who had two little girls, and so seems a little more relaxed than some of our other cats around the clamor of two baby boys) decided for the first time today that it was really just too much effort to shift his butt the three necessary inches to prevent Gus from grabbing him. Up till now, Buster has been lounging on the quilt or afghan on the floor with the boys, but juuuuuuuuuust out of reach. I've seen him shift as little as an inch, just barely enough to keep the questing little hand from his fur. But today he apparently said, "To hell with it," and let Gus make contact with his backside on a couple of different occasions. To give Gus credit, he merely patted Buster with a more or less open hand, as opposed to Sam's approach these days, which is best described as "Whacka whacka!" But the funny thing was that after Gus finally got to touch Buster, he started crying. I really have no idea why. Perhaps, like so many other long-deferred dreams, the reality did not live up to the fantasy. (Pictures of kid and cat soon, I promise!)