Presidents' Day

Last Memorial Day, I publicly proclaimed that Hope was teething. A month later, sitting in a hotel conference room at the CdLS conference in Chicago, a woman in our group with a syrupy Midwestern drawl held her toddler and asked a simple question.

How's come nobody tells you these kids take forever to cut a tooth?

I held Hope, pretended to nod sympathetically and thought: "Maybe your kid's choppers take forever. Mine are already coming in. Yee haw."

Nine months later, we're proud announce that Hope has --part the clouds, shout "Heavens to Murgatroyd" and strike up the band -- cut a tooth. And, oh yeah, I'm a cement-head.

After several months of sticking my fingers in her mouth and retrieving them in a pool of saliva and despair, I all but forgot that children grow things called "teeth." Independence Day begat Labor Day, Thanksgiving and even the Feast of St. Pacifico of San Severino. Alas, no Chiclets for the chickie.

We felt bumps around New Year's. I resolved not to get too excited, figuring we may to cycle through another set of holidays for actual tooth-age. But lo and behold, Presidents' Day is good for something beyond Zero Percent Financing With Prices This Low We Must Be Crazy car sales.

As she has for days, Mo jammed her pinky in Hope's mouth.

Chomp!
Ouch!

We have a tooth.

And just in time for our sanity too. We needed a pick-me-up. Hope caught a nasty strain of something that's been going around, lasts forever and causes you to cough like you have the plague. I had it for 2 weeks and was miserable. Ditto for Mo. And we're not 10 pounds with compromised breathing.

So far, Hopesy is managing as well as she can. She's on regular breathing treatments and wearing oxygen full-time until she can get over the hump. It could be a while.