...and Seven and Eight

This weekend my suspicions were confirmed. Gusi is getting more teeth, two to be exact. He has been drooling for weeks now and the runny nose has not stopped either. I tried everything--put the humidifier in his room, applied baby Vicks to his chest before bedtime, elevated one side of his crib mattress by putting a towel underneath it--and nothing worked. My conclusion: it's the teeth. My husband said that he hadn't seen anything, but since Friday I've seen the tiny slits in his gum line start to grow ever so slightly. He's miserable, crabby and can't stand to have me stick my fingers in his mouth. What's worse is that he's already got six teeth, so when I venture in there I really have to be careful.

It is just horrible to see him in pain, but the icing on the cake is his waking up in the middle of the night because his gums hurt (though we do offer pain relief to him just before bed time in the form of nasty tasting medicine). Our morning conversations have gone something like this:

Me: How long were you up with him last night?
PapaGus: Which time?
Me: Well, at 11pm, because I was with him at 2am.
PapaGus: No, I was with him at 2am and then again just before 5am.
Me: No, I was with him at 2am.
PapaGus: Maybe I was up with him at 2am the night before then?
Me: Perhaps, or maybe I'm the one getting confused.
PapaGus: Anyway, I was up for 45 minutes with him.
Me: Which time?
PapaGus: We need more sleep.
Me: You and I are in agreement, it's just Gusi who's not on the same page as us.

Of course, he gets to nap during the day so even though he may not sleep well at night, he can catch some zzzzs. I am faced with a daily dilemma: use nap time to get things done or nap myself. My thoughts usually go something like this when nap time comes around on those days that he's teething and I haven't had a good night's sleep:

-I just put him down so let me take a cat nap too, right after I go to the bathroom
-Hmm, but we need another roll of toilet paper in our bathroom, let me go take care of that
-Oh, and I forgot to clean up after him after his meal, let me do that too
-OK, since I'm close to the laundry room, let me just throw a load in the washer
-Hmm, we're almost out of detergent, let me put that on my grocery list to pick up next time
-Where are the post-it notes?
-Search kitchen, bedroom and home office
-Found them...put down detergent...I might as well see what else we need from the fridge and make a thorough list
-Notice that all of these bottles for recycling are taking up too much counter space, let me just drop it in the bin outside...after I rinse them all out
-FINALLY remember that I need to go to the bathroom, really, really bad at this point, so I go to the bathroom
-Wash hands
-My hands are dry, but where's the lotion I like?
-Search for the lotion...
-Etc, etc, etc