Toads-in-the-Hole

There are some memories altogether too painful for our little minds to preserve from infancy into adulthood. For Adelaide, cutting teeth will certainly be an event that she’ll be happy to blissfully forget someday.

Since we arrived home from K&C’s wedding, our girl has been a little less smiley, a little less chuckley, and a little less cheerful. Instead she has replaced her wide smiles, her deep chuckles, and her cheerful disposition with an ever-present scowl. We’d also noticed that she seemed to be always playing with her lower lip.

On Saturday evening, we decided to investigate her gumline with a little probing and discovered a jagged little white dot poking up on her lower gum. I see now why tooth growing is often described with words like “cutting” and “eruption.” The volcanic metaphor of “erupting” teeth is not lost on me. In addition to the little white speck, the gum surrounding the sharp, minute newcomer was red, swollen, and hot. Beneath a benign, rolling island of soft, pink mucosa, a terrible shifting and writhing of Adelaide’s lower plate caused an eruption, and now the landscape of her mouth will be forever altered.