That is supposed to be said to the tune of “Turning Japanese” by The Vapors.
If you handed me my purple, loud, cherubic daughter at the hospital and said, “She is gonna sleep like a champ for you starting at 11 weeks!! But when she starts losing baby teeth she will turn into a nightmare.” I would have gladly accepted her. Let’s face it, she was my second and the first never slept… ever. And also, when you are handed a newborn, the day this child begins losing teeth she does not yet possess is so far in the distance, it does not register. It’s like when strangers ask when you’re going to have another baby while you are still sporting the hospital diapers on your own body.
Let me just say, however, this is by far the worst stage this offspring has limped into. The drama. The screaming. The avoidance of all oral hygiene rules. The face map of all items ingested that day- all soft tearable, malleable foods. The screaming refusal of any food unable to be consumed with only 1/4 of her mouth. THE INSANITY!
She has lost six teeth already. 6. The anxiety and paranoia she is capable of is Kardashian levels, people. The child is just as bad with the 7th loose tooth as she was with the first. This is my payback for enjoying an infant who began sleeping 8 hours at 11 weeks old. Take heart, new parents, we all get it one way or another.
I actually wrestled with my daughter tonight over her miniature tooth brush. I went through the parental embarrassment of being seen in public with a child whose teeth look like they were coated in a Twix bar …. three days ago. I will not do it again. Did I mention she’s already lost six teeth?
So as it turns out, touching toothpaste to your tooth does not get it clean.
I am a monster!
Once I had a firm grip on the brush, I gently brushed her two permanent front teeth. I did not brush the loose one, but by the sound of it I was tearing the loose one out of her head one gum strand at a time.
Because of my careless and reckless light gentle scrubbing, her gum bled about as much as could fit on the head of a pin.
Hellfire rained down through the skylight. BLOOD?!?!?! What kind of Momster are you?!!? (again, she has been through this six times. Six times she has lived. Six times she was actually rewarded by that goddamned tooth fairy who just flits in when the battle is over and takes credit)
Three rinses which were 1/4 snot, 1/2 water, and 1/4 tears with a light essence of dirty blood mouth, and her mouth was nearly acceptable. I did not even tempt my last brain cell to make it through the fight of cleaning her face. She wiped half of it and that’s half more than was clean before we started.
I threw her pajamas over her head and tried not staring fiery daggers at the over-reactive hell spawn she was behaving like while she seethed smoke and snot out of her scrunched up nose at me while alternately sobbing.
So adolescence is gonna be a party.
Motherhood trains you for many things. Asylum Life stands out tonight as number one. Both running the joint and/or living comfortably in it. Right now I think i’ll take a cell and lock myself in for about eight more teeth.
Sarcasmica 