Crunch

This evening I was in Cub's room as he worked to fall asleep. After struggling a bit to put himself down, I decided to quietly soothe him with a melodic hum. Naturally, my not-so-melodic hum made him cry out even more. If he could've expressed himself in words, he probably would've said something about how off-key my humming was and how could I really expect him to fall asleep to that?! Lucky for me words have not become him yet.

After putting "the hum" to bed, I continued to gently pat him in the crib and rock his little legs, which seemed to have a mind of their own, jolting up and down as if on some secret sugar high. Cub had started to settle down for the most part now, everything except those active legs. Then I heard it -- A crunching sound.

What is he chewing on?! I panicked. It was too dark to see anything. The crunching continued.

Cub goes to bed with two loveys in his crib and both of them are soft animals. I did buy him one lovey that has chewable edges but I knew this wasn't in his crib. Then it occurred to me. Oh my gosh, he's gotten a hold of some nails or screws -- something terrible! How did he get them? I'm the most irresponsible mother! I managed to allow my 8 month old son to sneak nails into his bed!

Crunch, crunch...

The sound was atrocious! Worse than someone scraping their long fingernails down a chalk board. I immediately felt my way up to his face in the dark prepared to do the Heimlich. Clear the air passage, clear the air passage, I rehearsed, trying to quickly remember all the tips from high school health class.

Crunch, crunch...

My internal dialogue: My child eats nails! A metal eater. An almost crawling human garbage disposal --

When my fingers reached his little mouth. Nothing was there.

I tried to force my fingers into his little mouth as gently and gracefully as I could, trying to recover all the nails and scrap metal he managed to get in there, probably a junk yard full. But nothing.

I was perturbed.

Crunch, crunch...

There it was again!

I rushed my fingers back to his mouth. And then felt it.

Sharp as metal --- teeth.

He was grinding his new teeth!

About a week ago, Cub's two top teeth started cutting through his gums. Now he has a nice set of four teeth -- two top, two bottom. At any given moment he loves to break into this toothy goofy ear-to-ear grin to show off his latest achievement.

And now, it appears he likes to grind them together while trying to fall asleep.

Being a former hypochondriac, I would have rushed him off to ER after reading that one of the symptoms for baby teeth grinding is a sign of a parasite in their stomach!! But more commonly, and to my relief, it's an absolutely normal thing for babies to do when they first discover their teeth. (Check out one of the articles here)

Since I'm not usually in the room with him as he falls asleep I have no idea when this started or for how long it will go on. Most of the articles I read said it will subside within a few months. Or when he gets bored with it. Once the novelty has worn off.

I'm thankful that he wasn't swallowing nails tonight. And that most likely (in the name of Jesus) he doesn't have some 20 foot long worm in his tummy. But after hearing that grinding sound, I must admit those issues aren't much worse!