this time, the docs are right...kids, and everyone, reach differnt developmental milestones at different rates, and when you get teeth really doesn;t mean all that much about anything else.

my brother was the same way, and my grandma liked to fuss about it...like what can you do? outfit a baby with dentures so he can eat corn on the cob?

many kids don;pt chew their food enough anyway, so feed him a soft-ish diet of everything he likes and look at it this way - later teething means less wear and tear on the teeth he has.

if by any chance you are still breastfeeding ( nursed until mine was settled into a kindergarten she liked, but not everyone is that ahrd copre) it will be a boon.

the whole purpose to two sets of teeth in mammals is to permit lactation.

seems to me babiews fuss when teething whetehr they are two months old or two eyars old.

IO ehard a funny story about that, speaking of docs and teething - a friend of mine took her chidlren 9she had three, plus two stepdaughters) to the pediatrician. she asked about the "rashes and fevers while teething business."

the doctor told her, 'well, as a physician, i need to tell you that no one has ever proven any correlation between teething and those little ailments...they are mostly coincidence, as they say.

but I'm also a mother of three chidlren, and I can tell you form my experience as a mother...you aare absiolutely right. all three of my kids got droooly, developed diarrhea or rashes or runny noses or mild fevers when they were teething. there's a lot they don't teach us in med school."

I gotta love this woman doc!

anyway, I have a kid in high school now, fussing over final exams. it may not help much, but when you are sweating over the driver training thing, or getting into decent colleges, or the kids of things teens do to stress their parents out...you will wonder looking back at the days when he only had three and a half teeth.

as they say, "this too shall pass."

my brother who got his teeth alte knowcked a front tooth out running aroudn the living room table when he was three. look at it as a insurance packet...


Judith