April 22, 2007

Elliot was 7 months old on Friday!! And the front right tooth that had been bulging for 2 months finally cut through that morning. i could feel the tip of it, but as the day went on, his gum swelled and the tip disappeared. Then it formed a nasty looking blister-type thing on top of the tooth. Then, as he was playing that afternoon, I saw blood in his mouth. Not a small amount, either. The blister had burst and there was a huge tooth there - it had descended quite a bit within the gum sheath. But there still was a tiny skim of skin over it, so it looked like a horribly disfigured broken, bloody nub.

I gave him ice chips in his mesh feeder (literally, a mesh bag on a handle into which you can put all sorts of food for baby to gnaw on safely) to chew on and soon after, the second blister broke. He bled everywhere again - more than the first time. I actually heard a snap, because he was chewing on my finger at the time, the little muffin. I gave him a cool cloth to chew on, and every time I took it out of his mouth, there was another spot of blood. Eeewie! I didn't think I was squeamish, but seeing my son's blood made me a bit weak.

I nursed him and gave him some baby Motrin and he seemed fine, but looking at the tooth, it was still a bloody nub. The swelling went down, but there was still a small flap of skin over part of the tooth. He didn't have any trouble at all with the bottom front teeth. I know the top ones can be terrible, but this seems very unusual. I did some research and found out that it's uncommon but not unheard of for blood blisters to form.

Blister #3 broke this morning. Jay was changing him and said that Elliot made a very different sounding cry and when Jay checked him, there was blood on his chin. We gave him another cool cloth to chew on and he seemed happy as can be. It looks like most of the tooth has cut through now - maybe only a tiny bit of skin left to break through on the far corner. He's such a trooper!

I hope the left front tooth, which isn't showing ANY signs of arriving soon, cuts through without all this fanfare.