What am I doing?

You would think that I might be a little closer to figuring this parenting thing out (stop that snorting, readers with grown children who are probably still learning things) now that I'm going through it a second time with Ben.  Yet today I realized that the simplest explanations for things continue to elude me.

Ben has never been the best eater (compared with the conveyer belt feeder that is big brother) but lately he has become SUPER picky about eating.  Even the things he normally likes, such as PB sandwiches and crackers are being tossed off the highchair with reckless abandon.  I was even considering taking him over to the MD office to officially weigh him to see if he was loosing weight.  Then I considered what it would take to load two kids up and actually take them in and trying to keep Josh next to me while stripping and weighing Ben... yeah, that's not going to happen.

Then last night David told me that he could feel two more molars coming in.  The first one popped through about a month ago.

I didn't put two and two together until dinner time today, after talking to my mom on the phone complaining about how he only wants to eat baby food right now.

The poor kid's mouth hurts.

I felt like I should smack myself on the forehead and go d'oh.  Goodness, of COURSE that's why he hasn't been eating well for the last month.  If my mouth hurt I'd only want to chug down smooth foods too.

In my defense, teething was never an issue for Josh.  He got his first tooth around 6 months, had molars by nine months and pretty much a full mouth of chompers by a year old.  And it would be like, "Oh, look honey, he opened his mouth wide and there are four new teeth this week."  Little fussing, no fevers I remember and hardly any change in behavior after those first ones popped out.

Ben is proving once again that he is different than his big bro.  He drools so much he has a permanent rash on the underside of his chin.  I am grateful for the makers of infant pain medication.  And now obviously I need to adjust the little man's diet until we get those big bad molars in all the way.

So now I just need to let the guilt go that I was getting upset with him refusing all the food I was making.  There is still so much to learn about this parenting stuff.