Teeth are for more than biting

This has been a teeth-centered week for Otter. Wednesday he bit me for the first time, just leaned over and bit me on teh arm hard straight through my sleeve. He seemed to be in the midst of a spirit of exploration, just as he has been in attempting to stick his tongue all the way out and lick the floor, the walls, his toys, his paternal grandmother....

Last night as we helped him brush his teeth after his Dinosaur DVD and before nursing at bedtime, we discovered one possible reason for his sudden crying while waking from naps, his (and thus our) disrupted sleep, his poor appetite: he's got a new tooth coming in, a tiny white bump shyly poking up to make a trio of teeth in the bottom from of his mouth. It's just broken through the gums, and now that we know, we used the magic of Infant Motrin to help us all sleep better last night.

All his other teeth have come in in pairs, roughly, so I hope the matching fourth tooth in the bottom front, the one that will make his smile symmetrical, arrives soon. Teething is not much more fun for the parents than for the child.