Reason #11 – I enable my baby’s drug habit

Reason #11 – I enable my baby’s drug habit

May 30

Well, it’s not like he can support it himself – he’ll need to learn to walk and talk before he can score his own smack.

At some point in my pregnancy I must have been exposed to gamma rays or toxic waste or something, because instead of a baby I gave birth to a barracuda. One afternoon a few months ago I collected C at daycare and had a hard time recognising him: I’d left a toothless baby in the morning, and now they were giving me a boy with two perfect lower teeth. Just like that, no warning. Pop! Teeth!

He’s been teething nonstop since; I think he’s on his third row of teeth now.

I’ve said this before: he is an angel, but he is only human. Teething makes him cranky; he groans and whines, he drools like a German Shepherd at the beach, and his standard expression changes from “smiling cherub” to “Winston Churchill having a bad day.”

First, I tried the natural remedies: German chamomile (known here as matricaria,) fancy teething rings, letting him chew my knuckles into a pulp. No luck. Wet washcloth, chilled in the freezer? Nope. Cotton balls soaked in chamomile infusion? Blech.

I was almost used to his grim new expression, when daycare shocked me again by giving me back a sweet, smiling boy. How did they do this? I had to know! “Oh, we just spritzed some of this on his gums, we have used it on all the babies here when they are teething and it works like a charm.”

I tried some on myself, and woo-hoo, it numbed my gums instantly, just like… you know, something else that numbs your gums instantly (ahem).

It was lidocaine.

*Choir of angels singing*

Now whenever he gets tetchy and looks ready to start bombing Dresden, I whip out the magic bottle and give him a few spritzes of the good stuff. Oooh yeah.

(Curious fact: this is one of very few things I do that actually have my mother’s approval and endorsement. Go figure.)