Been waiting for this one for a long, long time...

...and I finally get to say it: my little man, Eli Bryce, has cut his first tooth! I can't see it, but I can feel it. And I know it's there.

Honestly, never did I expect him to be so late, although he's late with everything else, so why not? But at the sweet young age of four months, I could have sworn he was already getting in gear: drooling, fingers in the mouth, painful crying. All the classic symptoms. Turned out the painful crying was always because of his poor little ears, but that's another story.

Anyway, eight months old came and went, which is when Shiloh got his first tooth, and so did twelve months and fifteen months. At his twelve month appointment, his pediatrician warned us that if we didn't see any by fifteen months they would have to check him out. Well, those three months flew right by and not a single tooth, and no sign of any either. So about two weeks ago we took him for bloodwork, to be sure it wasn't caused by some weird disease - I have no idea even what those diseases were. Yesterday morning the pediatrician called to say everything in the bloodwork looked great (Shiloh's cholesterol too, which they also had to check), and x-rays were the next step at eighteen months if we still didn't have any action going on in there.

Well, yesterday Eli woke up from his nap starving as usual, so we shared a protein bar, a gift from my hubby to try to get this little baby in me to start growing. I let Eli lick some chocolate off my finger and froze. Then unfroze, sure it had to just be a crumb. But nope! Wonder of wonders, there it is - an itty bitty sharp spot where his bottom front left tooth should be! I had the windows open and there were some kids outside riding their bikes who must have thought I was crazy - who cares about a tooth? Let me tell ya, sixteen months and three days is long enough to make a big deal.

So we called Daddy and the grandmas and baked some cookies to celebrate. My baby is growing up.