Teeth!

On Saturday, Marcus noticed that one of Holly’s bottom teeth was just starting to poke through the gum. I checked for myself and agreed. The faintest white dot was visible and I could feel the roughness with my finger.

Both Marcus and I had been feeling Holly’s bottom gums once or twice a week lately to see if her teeth had begun to sprout yet. She’s been drooling like mad for a couple of months, which means I’ve been expecting teeth “any day now” for quite a while. I’ve read that drooling does not necessarily mean teething, though, and since the drooling went on for so long with no sign of teeth, it may not be related. In any case, it is now Tuesday, and the full top ridges from BOTH of her bottom front teeth have now erupted. I’d take a picture, but I think they’re still too small to show up in a photo. Maybe this weekend they’ll be ready to make their blog debut.

In the meantime…

“Baby Doll”, as she’s known in this house, is basically another baby sister as far as Emrick is concerned. When I ask Emrick to name who is in our immediate family, he always lists Baby Doll. If *I* talk about who’s in our family, and I neglect to mention Baby Doll, he reminds me. He kisses and cuddles her, and sometimes wants to nap with her. I said to Marcus, “I’m not sure how that Baby Doll chick finagled her way into this family, but she’s gooood.”

For a while there, Emrick was getting a kick out of having his two favorite girls do everything together. If I put Holly in the swing, Emrick put Baby Doll on top of her; if I put Holly in the rocker, Emrick put Baby Doll next to her. He once even tried to get me to nurse Baby Doll. I’m not sure why, since he has nursed her himself several times since we brought Holly home in September.

Seriously, he does this without prompting. Marcus first told me about it when Holly was just a few weeks old. Apparently, while he was trying to get Emrick changed into his pajamas one night, Emrick lifted his shirt and got Baby Doll into nursing position. He was quite pleased with himself.

Some of Emrick’s efforts to treat Baby Doll like Holly don’t turn out so sweet, though. One day, after seeing me buckle Holly into her swing, Emrick attempted to use the same buckle on Baby Doll. He wasn’t sure how it worked, though, and ended up just putting the center of the buckle (the part that comes up between the legs) on Baby Doll’s wrist. Poor girl looked like she was shackled.

She doesn’t seem too bothered  by it, though. Emrick later attempted to shackle Holly in a similar fashion, but as I wasn’t too keen to see  how that turned out, I put a stop to it.

Anyway, no sign of teeth in Baby Doll yet, but Emrick and I are hoping that neither she nor Holly proves to be a biter. Ouch.