Holy molars!

Those teeth are really taking their toll on us.

We were supposed to drive into the city (a rare event these days) and go to a restaurant near Fenway for an early dinner tonight.  Will has a friend from Oxford in town and neither the baby nor I have ever met her, but I told him to go ahead without us.  The baby has been running a fever all day and fighting me to stay hydrated; the last thing we need to do to her is drag her out in traffic and hope that she is in a decent mood at a restaurant when she's been having trouble sleeping.

She's 12.25 months old now, and she has just over half of her baby teeth.  The molars are popping through now.  We should be done soon, right?

But let me get to the real battle of today: we're off our schedule.  She's been fussy and not sleeping well, which has made me tired and emotionally exhausted.  I had a second cup of coffee this morning for an extra perk, but now my stomach doesn't feel super awesome.  It's been raining outside, and the hourly forecast doesn't look great so we'll likely be inside for the rest of the day. 

So this is the brutal part of staying at home.  Certainly, I knew every day would not be filled with giggles in the wildflowers and perfectly timed naps so I can make a perfect salmon bake.  But the days where everything is off, where you are fighting - not to eat vegetables - but to just keep them hydrated because drinking hurts their teeth, where the husband is nowhere to be found until late in the evening -- these are the days that make me wonder if staying at home is really the best thing for me.

And then I remember my job.  And even on the worst days at home with our daughter, staying at home is still way easier than even my easiest days at the office.  She's teething and off her schedule, but I now have the flexibility to deal with it.  I'm not trying to answer emails while I nurse her to sleep.  I can let her sleep in after a tough evening when she was up too late.  I loved my job, yes, but I didn't love what the logistics did to our baby (and our marriage) on the easiest days, let alone on days like today.

So we'll read that Goodnight Moon book a few dozen more times and I'll probably cave and give her ice cream for dinner to help with her teething.  We'll get back to our schedule some other day.