I’m proud to say that little Zoe officially has “all the teeth she will have” until they all fall out, then come back in, then fall out again (many decades later we hope). The holdouts were the last 4 molars, and believe me, we KNEW they were coming.

In all fairness, it wasn’t hours of screaming that alerted us (thank goodness). It was two solid weeks of interrupted sleep, a snotty nose, an on/off fever, 4 babysitters to watch her during school hours, and more like ONE scream in the middle of EACH night that we knew wasn’t “normal”. We were worried she was getting another ear infection, which at this point would be bad. She’s had 3 in the past 4 months, a sign that she might need professional help while her little eustachian tubes fully develop.

But no, it was teeth. And four of them in 2 weeks, from bulging gum to TOOTH. How efficient.

Amazingly, she’ll have these teeth until they start to fall out around age 6, which sounds like a long time to me, and won’t have all her “permanent” teeth until age 12 or 13 (I think Bart and I will be in our 80s by then). Oh, the things there are to know about little bodies.

Speaking of which, Zoe had her 2.5 year checkup just before her rapid teeth deployment. You’ll be happy to know she’s still perfect (and short, fat with a big head, per all the official percentage trackers). In our commitment not to be crazy people, Bart and I took a leap of faith early on and decided NOT to go crazy reading about “baby stuff”. We agreed to trust our pediatrician Dr JJ (who we loved) and follow her guidance. She told us “promise me you won’t go search the internet to find answers, just email me”, and we did. And then she retired…

We also love our new (same practice) pediatrician, Dr Jeremy, but I think he might be OK with us doing a little legwork on our own. For example, as you know, we finally got her a haircut. I don’t know what’s normal, but it was beginning to look like a rat’s nest, so we went. Not long after that, the rat’s nest returned. So when we went in for our 2.5 year checkup, I asked Dr Jeremy what the heck we were supposed to DO with her HAIR?!

His eyebrows went up. And our conversation went like this…

• Dr Jeremy:   Well, do you brush it?
• Me:   Well, no.
• Dr Jeremy (with raised eyebrows again):   Then what do you do after her bath?
• Me:   We take a towel and do “washing machine” really fast on her head, like I do for my own hair. She loves it.
• Dr Jeremy:   You should brush it.

Live. Learn. I guess? Anyone have a brush we can borrow?

(I’m kidding)