On Bourbon on the Rocks

Clover is teething. That’s what we tell people when she cries for no reason. She seems perfectly content one minute, and the next, she’s wailing like she’s being tortured. We’ve been telling people that she’s teething ever since we stopped using the excuse that “she’s only a few weeks old.” But now we think it’s actually true. We were hanging out with our neighbors last weekend, and of course she started down her usual screaming path and all of the neighbors decided she was definitely teething. While one went off to find some baby Orajel, another put some crushed ice in a cloth and then dipped it in bourbon! Before I even realized what had happened, Clover was happily sucking on the cloth and the screaming had ceased. Now, I neither condone nor advocate destroying a baby’s liver, but all I can say is that sometimes those crazy things people used to do in the good ol’ days actually work. It’s a wonder that babies from back then even made it through childhood in one piece, considering the whole milk, castor oil, and bourbon they were forced to consume. The funny thing is that I’m never actually sure who to say what to, for fear that they might criticize or give me that look of disapproval when they find out that I give my baby Zantac, and that she sleeps on her stomach, and that we put a blanket over her at night, and that I rock her to sleep sometimes because she’s a baby and one day very soon she won’t be and then I will never get to rock her to sleep again. Everybody has advice and it all conflicts with somebody else’s advice. Somebody at work said to make sure I take her pacifier away by the time she’s 4 months old. My response was, “You don’t live with her, and she’s 5 months old now.” Hmmm…I may not know exactly what to do with her in every scenario, but I know one thing…the next time she cries, I’m making her a peanut butter and honey sandwich with strawberries on the side. And bourbon on the rocks…good for baby, and good for mom.

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