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We would like to welcome Left Primary Top Incisor Tooth to Sean’s mouth. (It only took a couple of your neighbors pushing ahead of you in line, eh?) To recap, tooth number 5 pierced the gum this morning, although it looks like it’s still got some painful work to do making a bigger hole in the gum. That’s 3 new teeth this past week(!), and if history’s any guide, LPTIT’s partner will show up in a couple days too…
And because I was feeling artsy…
I call this ‘Still Life (in a life that’s anything but still)’:
So we have a new tooth! Just not the one I was expecting — or hoping — would come in. Since Sean won’t oblige us with teeth pictures, we’ll have to go to the board. Here we see a diagram of Sean’s mouth:
The blue teeth are the ones he got just after turning four months. They’re probably all the way in now and are big and sharp. The purple tooth was the object of my last post. It’s been big and bulging and you can see its whiteness, the gum there is so thin. It’s been like this for a month, just getting bulgier and bulgier. However, the tooth next to it, in green, must have thought my challenge was for it, because just yesterday evening, we noticed that that tooth had cut through the gum. Egad!
We tried to explain to Sean that he was doing his teeth out of order. He didn’t seem to care, however, and instead blew some bubbles while making an adorable cooing sound.
WTF, Tooth! What exactly are you waiting for? We see you there, hunkered out in Sean’s gum, pretending to be invisible. You’re not fooling anyone, Tooth; that big hard bulge gives you away. So what are you waiting for, Tooth? You waiting for all the other teeth to be ready to appear? Forget them! Be bold and come on through on your own! Be a leader, Tooth; those other teeth will follow. You’ll see. You waiting for an invitation? Well here it is, Tooth. Come on out of that gum. Join the rest of the mouth. Let’s go, Tooth. Waiting is just making everyone miserable, yourself included. Just do it. Come out into the drool.
I know this is a fairly Sean-centric blog, but here’s a non-Sean post.
Ben’s first scientific journal article where he’s the first author was just published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. (“First author” is important because it means that he was the primary scholar involved with the research and he wrote the paper itself. Ben has other publications where he has been involved in the research, but is not the first author. First author papers are also important because they are a key component of one’s resume in academia.) This article will also be the first chapter in his three-chapter dissertation. It’s quite an accomplishment.
Sean likes to go for walks. And even better than the stroller is when he gets to be up high on his dad’s chest.
Ready to go out
Walking
We’re still dealing with major teething. My guess is that six teeth are on the verge of coming in — I hope they do so soon, as Sean is sometimes hysterical with teething pain. We’ve got every teething do-dad there is and just have to rotate them as none satisfy for longer than five minutes or so. This one worked pretty well… until Sean folded it in half, causing the contents to ooze out:
Teething
And finally, I mentioned the other day that Sean rolled over while playing with his dad. The next day he did it for me, too. Now it’s completely reliable, and in fact, I don’t think Sean plans to spend any further time on his tummy at all.
For his birthday, Sean decided to roll over. From front to back. Unaided. He’s been propping himself up on his elbows for a week or so now, and this morning he managed to tip over from that position and flip onto his back. He seemed rather startled and didn’t repeat it for the video camera.
And he’s still madly teething. We’re waiting on the top two middle teeth, which I think are a week away or less. But between bouts of teething fussiness, he’s still his cheerful self — especially right after a nap, which is when we took his 5-month photos:
