the past four days ramona has not been herself. she has four teeth coming in and it has affected every bit of her. runny nose, weird poop, poor sleep. my little bean, who is usually rather charming and happy (she says so herself) is one cranky, pouty, whiney butt this week. i know she’ll come around — those red, soft, swollen gums show promise of new white teeth about to pop through. but until then it’s exhausting trying to maintain some sort of calm and care for her and for myself. though, the few peeks of smiles (or just smirks) i get from her are quite rewarding.

to deal with toddler teething, our family utilizes a couple of tools: a baltic amber teething necklace, alternating between infants’ acetaminophen and ibuprofen, hyland’s teething tablets, cold foods and drinks, lots of snuggles and nurses (every time she’s nearly done nursing she gets sick or starts to teeth and it’s all out the window), and letting her use her pacifier whenever she damn well pleases (on a normal day pacifier use is limited to only when she is napping or down for the night). this time around? with the canines? all of the above have proven to be absolutely worthless.