Meltdowns and Toofers

On Tuesday, James woke up crying... I mean in pain crying. He normally wakes up happy and giggles when you go in to get him... on this day - he just cried and put his hands over his ears. Then when I picked him up - he put his head on my shoulder and snuggled. None of this is normal for James... he is pretty independent and wants to be on the go.

My first thought was: Does he have an ear infection? Then I thought about those pesky 2 year molars that are sure to pop up at some point soon for us. I don't have anything to go on with the ear infection issue - because he has only gotten 1 in his entire life... but this just doesn't seem like it's a sick issue.

Yesterday, we went to MOPS...and this issue reared its ugly head again. I went to drop him off at his class and my baby who normally just scampers off into the room to play - without looking back - was reduced to tears. Hysterical, clawing at the lady to get to Mommy tears. I feel horrible leaving him because I knew that he just simply is hurting... but I told them to page me if he didn't settle down in about 5 minutes... they never paged me, so I let him stay.

When I picked him up though, his eyes were this sad purplish red color... and I knew he was not only exhausted, but just plain done. We rushed through our Chick-fil-a lunch and then put them in bed as fast as I could. James slept for 3 hours, and I've been keeping him with Tylenol as needed. He did sleep without waking up last night - and was pretty happy and giggly when I got him out of bed this morning. No tears at the MDO drop off... so maybe he's doing better.

We have no teeth poking through - so I don't know what to think about those 2 year molars... they could still be rearing their ugly heads, but I'm just not 100% sure of what our issue is right now. If the problem is teeth - I wish they'd just come in and be done with it... so he can have this teething mess behind him.

It's interesting - I was talking with another Mom at MOPS yesterday and she has two boys as well... a drooler and a non-drooler... we have the same phenomenon going on with that. Our non-drooler seems to have more pain with teething issues (James) and our droolers seem to have plenty of water works but not as much pain. (Tyler)

What's your experience?