Dog Years

Tomorrow is Smitty's birthday. Or so Jacob says. But he's been saying tomorrow is Smitty's birthday for a week now. Apparently he doesn't have the preparations is order so he has to keep putting it off. Or at least that's what I'm assuming. For now I'll have to be grateful that Jacob hasn't asked me to bake a cake and get ice cream like I had to do for Pilchard's birthday last year. Pilchard celebrated her birthday for two months straight. Now it's Smitty's birthday and each day the number of years he is turning changes. I can't remember where it's at now; Jacob makes up a new number each day.

Smitty's been going with us everywhere these days. He came to Playschool today. And when it was so bitter cold walking across the parking lot, Jacob stuffed Smitty into his coat to carry him in.

Right now Jacob is trying to get him to bed. He's in a preemie sized sleeper and Jacob is nursing him in the rocker. He just explained that Smitty didn't dirty any diapers today, although I hear that he grinds his teeth in his sleep (hmm..so does Jacob - projection anyone?) so Jacob has to put a special mask on Smitty. I wonder if they make this mask for five year old humans? He told us how he has to try to stop Smitty from grinding his teeth because it's bad for him. This is what we tell Jacob for an excuse when he wakes up with us pressing on his jaw, or occasionally me with my finger jammed between his top and bottom teeth. I don't actually know that the teeth grinding is bad for his teeth, but I'm willing to pretend it does in an effort to get Jacob to stop because the sounds that it makes is worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. It makes me want to cut my ears off.

The jaw rubbing started because I think I read about another mother's experience with her daughter's teeth grinding. She said that when her daughter would grind her teeth she'd gently rub the girl's jaw to relax her muscles and make her stop. It was the only thing I ever came across suggesting you could do anything to stop the annoying habit. So I started to use the technique on Jacob and it worked at first. Then after a while it didn't work so well. The jaw rubbing would actually wake him and he'd swat me away. But that sound is so awful I can't let it go.

Now he's progressed to violently fighting me off in the night while actually still grinding his teeth. So the jaw rubbing has zero effect except to make me feel as if I've got a little bit of control. When that doesn't work I get desperate to make it stop and that's when I try to pry his teeth open with my finger, hence the finger jamming. His teeth are clenched down so hard that I often have trouble getting in there. What kind of stress could be coursing through his little body at night that would make him so physically tense?

When the finger jamming doesn't work I basically try anything to wake him up. By that point I'm so freaked out by the grinding sound that my primal instinct overrides the fact that the source of the noise is my own flesh and blood and I'm afraid that someday it might drive me to actually punch him in the jaw (not really).

What does this have to do with Smitty? I'm not really sure. I'm convinced there must be some root problem to the teeth grinding. If the physician and dentist tell me that there's nothing you can do about it, then maybe I should see what the psychologist has to say about it. I have to get to the bottom of it for my own sanity. And if I have to role play with Smitty, then so be it.