How You Know It's Going To Be A Bad Night

I'm suspecting that Monkey is finally starting the teething process. The past few nights he's woken up at least once between bedtime and morning (he's slept for 11-12 hours at night since he was 3 months old), he's got a stuffy/runny nose, chewing on everything, and generally irritable. That's fine...not fun, but fine. Tonight, however, is a completely different animal.

First of all, he woke up after being in bed for less than an hour...and he's been crying for 45 minutes. While trying to comfort him, nothing was good enough-which is to be expected. During all of that, however, my eldest dog started crying. Well, screaming, actually. She's been limping slightly for a couple of hours, but now any move she makes sends her into a complete meltdown, culminating in her wanting to be cuddled while screaming. The biggest problem with this is that her, um, vocalizations are ear-splitting. They kill my ears...and Monkey really hates them. They hurt his ears, they scare him, and he's already extremely upset. So, at one point, I ended up sitting on my kitchen floor, screaming baby AND screaming dog in my lap, all of us crying.

I finally decided that there was really nothing I was going to be able to do for either of them that would really help. I gave Monkey a little Tylenol and a cold, wet washcloth to suck on, and put him to bed. He's still fussing,  but it seems to be lessening

I forced both dogs to go to bed (which took a good 15 minutes since Ally just wanted to be yelping in my ear pitifully). They are now both asleep (thank you very much).

I just hope this teething thing goes fast. The topper to all of this tonight was that Ben is gone until Friday...so I have no in-home backup. I now plan on going and stuffing my face with as much ice cream as I can. A hot bath and a glass of wine or tea may also be on the agenda tonight.