Look mom! New tooth!

It's the teething season again.

I really hate dislike the teething season. 

I know I used to be so thrilled at every new tooth J sprouted that I kept a record of which teeth came out first. It's somewhere in my monthly letters to her.

That was when she didn't have any tooth. Even when she did, she didn't bite that hard. I actually loved it when she bit my chin with her gums.

As J grew older, teething got more challenging and uncomfortable. My sweet little girl goes into a rampage every teething season. She gets cranky easily, which is unusual since she is usually quite happy. She pulls out hair, yanks our spectacles off our faces, all while gritting her teeth. She becomes a scary little person and during the initial days when this happened, I thought it was all part of toddlerhood. It was so frustrating for me that she displays these bad behaviour and I doubted if I was doing the whole parenting thing right at all.

It took me a long while but we finally figured out that J behaves like that because she desperately needs to bite/ soothe her gums. 

These couple of days, I called J "naughty" more often than I wanted to. I smacked her hands more -she's either kicking her books (which she knows she isn't supposed to), or pulling our hair, or just tossing things around. I saw acts of defiance, and acts that challenges the boundaries we set. We had been tolerant towards these behaviours because it coincided with her throat infection and she was quite unwell. But they didn't go away after she recovered. 

Last night on the bus, she yanked my spectacles out twice and squeezed them in her hands. She's tiny but she's strong. I freaked out. She pulled my hair. She kicked up a major fuss in the bus. She kicked two men who walked past us - on purpose. Back home, she kicked the books. Her daddy scolded her and she came running to me, crying out for "Mama!!"

Then, she BIT and tugged on my shorts.

She pulled away after a while then went "Mama!!" and chomped on my shorts again.

That's when it occurred to me -- J is teething! 

We pulled out the Under the Nile banana.

She took it and stuffed it into her mouth, and bit on it while she went off to play with her toys. The Husband was with her and when I checked, she was perfectly okay.

This morning, when I sensed a temper tantrum coming on, I asked if she wanted the banana. She said yes and this happened.

My lifesaver!

We have had this Under the Nile toy for a while now. Wasn't quite expecting the banana to make a comeback but I'm glad it did! Check out the wet portion of the banana!