That afternoon at work things went by agonizingly slow. Kim was anxious to
see her children again. She kept constantly checking to see how much time
was left before the end of their shift.
"Looking at your watch every couple of minutes is going to make time go by even more slowly." Bobby said, laughing silently to himself.
She shot a surprised look at Bobby and said, "I can't help it. I'm anxious to see how Joey and Keira are."
"I know. I'm anxious to see them too. There for a while it was weird not having them around." He replied.
"I especially wonder how Keira's doing since she's getting ready to start cutting teeth soon." Kim said, thinking about the discomfort she could be in from the inflammation.
"We'll find out soon enough. She's in good hands though. I'm sure your mom's got plenty of tricks to help her through it." Bobby said in response; "How come Jimmy never called last night to tell us she was teething?"
"Alex threatened to leave which would have meant it would have been up to him to calm her down all night long. Needless to say he didn't touch the phone until Alex was asleep when he left the voice mail on my phone." Kim replied.
Bobby cracked up laughing and said, "Do you really think she would have left him that evening?"
"Come on Bobby this is Alex we're talking about. If he would have called she would have left and he would have been pulling an all nighter with Keira. He maybe stupid at times but he's not that stupid." Kim said giggling.
"Point taken." He replied cracking a smile.
Kim rolled her eyes and laughed and said, "I'm going to go call and check on our daughter. Come get me if we get a call.", as she headed towards her bunk.
Bobby nodded his head in response and went into the T.V room and watched as the snow fell past the window. Alex came in a short time later and saw him looking out at the falling snow and began to inquire about how his weekend had gone.
"So, how did your weekend go?" Alex asked taking a seat in one of the recliners.
"Couldn't have went any better." He replied taking a seat on the couch.
"What all did you have planned to surprise her with?" Alex inquired curiously.
"It started out just dinner and a movie, but then it grew into a bubble bath, going dancing and playing games all evening." He replied with a grin.
"Who won the games?" Alex asked curiously.
"She won the first one, and we both lost the on the last one." He replied, thinking back to the fun that they'd had that weekend.
Kim had stretched out on her bunk and pulled out her cell phone and dialed her mother's number. Keira had been crying for several minutes because of the pain from teething and Kim's mother was working on getting her settled down when she heard the phone begin to ring.
"Joey can you get the phone for me?" she called, getting one of the teething rings from the fridge.
He ran for the phone and quickly answered finding his mom on the other end.
"Hey sweetie how are you?" she asked, hearing Keira crying in the background.
"Pretty good." He replied, watching his grandmother trying to calm his sister down.
"How's Keira doing?" Kim asked.
"She's still really irritable. We've been trying to give her a bottle but she won't cooperate and is drooling a lot and rubbing at her ears whenever we lay her down." Joey replied; "What's going on with her? She hasn't done anything like this before."
"She's teething and everything you just described to me are the classic textbook symptoms of it. Normally the first tooth is always the worst and later on it shouldn't be as bad." Kim replied.
"So this is normal?" Joey asked.
"Yep, its all normal for a teething baby." She said in response as Bobby came up; "Lemme talk to your grandmother for a bit sweetheart."
Joey passed the phone to his grandmother and sat down on the couch and took over what she'd been doing with Keira, holding the cold teething ring while she began to bite down on it, the coldness soothing her sore mouth.
"How's everything going?" Kim asked her mother.
"Other than trying to make Keira as comfortable as we can where she's teething, not much else has happened." She replied, watching Joey to make sure everything was ok.
"Joey was describing what all she was doing and everything he said was the classic textbook symptoms for teething. Have the teething rings we brought over helped any?" Kim asked.
"Joey's giving her one now and it's starting to calm her down." Her mother replied.
"Good. I'll see you all when our shift is up." Kim said.
"Ok. You two be careful and I'll see you tonight when you get off." Her mother replied before hanging up the phone.
As Kim put her cell phone up, Bobby sat down beside her on the bunk and asked, "How's she doing?"
"Being the typical teething baby." Kim replied, realizing he was in for an interesting evening tonight.
"And what does a typical teething baby do?" he asked.
"Be really irritable, won't eat, drools a lot and rubs at the ears. Eventually they start biting to try and relieve some of the pain. She hasn't gotten to the biting part yet though." She said in response.
"It looks like you and I are in for one heck of an evening then." He replied.
"Oh of course we are. Chances are we may not be getting a whole lot of sleep either." Kim said in response.
That evening when the shift was over, they changed out of their uniforms after having finished inventory and got ready to leave. Alex and Jimmy were heading out of the station when they came down from changing, and they each grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge before leaving the station. When they got outside the car was covered with snow so Bobby began the process of cleaning off the windshield and back window of the Explorer while Kim started the engine and got the heat going. The roads were snow covered and just to be on the safe side they took their time heading to her mothers to pick up the kids. They didn't know if there was a layer of ice beneath the snow or not and didn't want to find out the hard way by driving too fast. They pulled up in front of her mothers home around 11:40 and headed towards the front door. They could hear Keira crying as they approached the door and Kim noticed a worried look cross Bobby's face as Joey opened the door and let them in.
Joey gave his mother and Bobby a hug and asked quietly," How much longer is this going to last?", referring to Keira being in the teething stage.
"It's going to be a while sweetheart," Kim replied, following the source of the crying, stopping in the bathroom to wash her hands.
As she entered the room her mother was in she asked, "How's she doing?"
"She just woke up again crying. We managed to get her to take a some of a bottle but until the inflammation settles down she's probably going to be a finicky eater for a while." Her mother replied as Kim picked her up.
She quietly began to talk to her trying to get her to settle down as she gently rubbed her crying daughter's gums with the pads of her fingers. Bobby was talking to Joey in the living room when they heard the crying start to die down and eventually stop several minutes later. After she'd settled down she headed out to where Bobby and Joey were and said, "We'd better head out while I've got her calmed down. Since we're probably going to be up most of the night with her crying, do you want to stay the night here Joey?"
"Would you mind?" Joey asked softly.
"It's ok. As long as your grandmother doesn't mind that is." Kim replied, glancing up at her mother.
"It's fine if he stays till she settles down a bit." Her mother said in response.
"You behave for your grandmother and we'll see you tomorrow afternoon when we drop her off before work." Kim said as Bobby grabbed the diaper bag.
Kim zipped up Keira's jacket and put a blanket over her before they headed outside to keep the cold chill off her till they got to the car. While Kim fastened her into the car seat, Bobby started the engine and got the heat going to warm up the inside of the Explorer while he cleared the windshield and back window of snow. They managed to make it home before she began to cry again. Kim went and got one of the cold teething rings from the fridge and sat down on the couch with her and let her chew on it. Bobby went in for a quick shower and Kim thought through the plan that would hopefully get them through the night. When he came out he watched Keira while she went in and took a quick shower as well. After she'd finished she came back out and said, "I think I've got a plan to get us through tonight."
"What have you come up with?" he asked, looking down at Keira still chewing the teething ring like there was no tomorrow.
"I'll try and see if I can get her to eat a bit more before she goes to bed and if she starts to fuss we can use a little of the ora-jel on her and get a little bit of sleep. Then alternate who gets up with her through out the night so we can get as much sleep as we can since we both have to work." She suggested.
"Sounds good to me," He replied, noticing it looked like Keira was about ready to start crying again.
Kim went and got the second teething ring from the fridge and handed it to him to give to her and took the first one and rinsed it off and put it in the fridge to get cold once more. She decided to try nursing Keira to see if she'd cooperate better than trying to give her a bottle since she was being finicky earlier. When Joey went through this it helped so she figured she try it with her as well and see if it worked for her as well. They'd been bottle feeding her after the cyanide incident because they didn't know if it could be passed through milk so they decided to wait a bit just to be on the safe side. She'd try giving her a bottle first though to see if she'd take it but if she wouldn't, then would try to nurse her. She warmed a bottle up for her and went back into the living room and took a seat on the couch next to Bobby. He took the bottle and tried to see if he could get her to take it but each time she turned her head away and wouldn't cooperate.
He sighed and put the bottle on the coffee table and said, "She's got to eat something. From the way your mom talked they didn't have much luck with this either."
"Let me see what I can do." Kim replied, hoping Keira cooperated with her.
Bobby passed Keira over to her and figured she was going to try to see if she could get her to nurse. He hoped it worked because there was no way they could force her to take a bottle if she didn't want to. He got up and went to put the bottle in the fridge since they hadn't used any of it. Much to his relief came back out and saw that Keira had cooperated and was nursing.
"There's one obstacle out of the way," he said with a sigh, sitting back down on the couch.
"Yep, I'm just relieved she cooperated. I was worried she wouldn't and then we'd be in a bit of a crisis." Kim replied, leaning back against the couch.
"You got that right." Bobby said back to her.
After she'd finished nursing, they put some of the baby ora-jel on her gums since she'd started to fuss again. Once it had taken effect she quickly fell asleep after having just eaten and they put her down for the night, wondering how long she'd sleep. They put the second teething ring in the fridge since it would be a while hopefully till she needed it again.
"How long do you think she'll sleep?" Bobby asked as they left the nursery.
"It's hard to say. It depends on how long the gel lasts." She replied, noticing it was after 1 in the morning.
"We'd better get to bed and get some sleep before we start rotating who gets up with her." He suggested; "By the way which of us is taking the first shift with her?"
"I'll take the first one." She replied, curling up in bed and burrowing into the covers.
They got about 4 hours of sleep before Keira began to cry again. Kim got up and got one of the teething rings and headed into the nursery and picked her up. She gently rocked her while she chewed on the cold teething ring. She hoped to avoid using the ora-jel too much because you're only supposed to use it four times a day, and they would probably need it later on. So she decided to go with the teething ring, ice and finger massage trick, hoping it would get her back to sleep. She talked quietly to her while she gnawed on the teething ring. Once the coldness had worn off, Keira had started to fuss and Kim started to gently massage her gums with her fingers. After about an hour and a half Keira finally fell asleep again and she gently placed her back in the crib and went back to bed. Three hours later it was Bobby's turn to get up. He must have been sound asleep because he didn't move for a bit. Kim began to wake him up since it was his turn to get up with her.
"Bobby," she said sleepily; "Get up, it's your turn with Keira."
He felt her grab hold of his shoulder and shake till he'd woken up.
"I do believe it's your turn with Keira." She said once more, making sure he got up before going back to sleep.
He mumbled something incoherent as he made his way across the hall to his crying daughter.
"Sssh, está bien a novio. No llore." He said softly as he picked her up out of the crib. {Sssh, it's ok sweetheart. Don't cry.}
He carried her in and got a wash cloth and an ice cube from the freezer and wrapped it up and took it back to the nursery and gently ran it over her gums. When she began to settle down he moved the chair closer to the window and let her look out at the snow that was still falling illuminated by the streetlights from outside.
"¿La nieve no es Keira bonita?" he asked, watching her look around outside at the snow covered ground below and squeal softly. {Isn't the snow pretty Keira?}
When she started fussing again he got another piece of ice and repeated the massage trick till she settled down and fell asleep an hour later. He placed a gentle kiss on her cheek and said softly, "Buenas noches novio. Duerma bien. La mami y el Papá lo verán en la mañana." {Goodnight sweetheart. Sleep well. Mommy and Daddy will see you in the morning.}
Spanish Translations
~~~
Sssh, está bien a novio. No llore.
Sssh, it's ok sweetheart. Don't cry.
~~~
¿La nieve no es Keira bonita?
Isn't the snow pretty Keira?
~~~
Buenas noches novio. Duerma bien. La mami y el Papá lo verán en la mañana.
Goodnight sweetheart. Sleep well. Mommy and Daddy will see you in the morning.
"Looking at your watch every couple of minutes is going to make time go by even more slowly." Bobby said, laughing silently to himself.
She shot a surprised look at Bobby and said, "I can't help it. I'm anxious to see how Joey and Keira are."
"I know. I'm anxious to see them too. There for a while it was weird not having them around." He replied.
"I especially wonder how Keira's doing since she's getting ready to start cutting teeth soon." Kim said, thinking about the discomfort she could be in from the inflammation.
"We'll find out soon enough. She's in good hands though. I'm sure your mom's got plenty of tricks to help her through it." Bobby said in response; "How come Jimmy never called last night to tell us she was teething?"
"Alex threatened to leave which would have meant it would have been up to him to calm her down all night long. Needless to say he didn't touch the phone until Alex was asleep when he left the voice mail on my phone." Kim replied.
Bobby cracked up laughing and said, "Do you really think she would have left him that evening?"
"Come on Bobby this is Alex we're talking about. If he would have called she would have left and he would have been pulling an all nighter with Keira. He maybe stupid at times but he's not that stupid." Kim said giggling.
"Point taken." He replied cracking a smile.
Kim rolled her eyes and laughed and said, "I'm going to go call and check on our daughter. Come get me if we get a call.", as she headed towards her bunk.
Bobby nodded his head in response and went into the T.V room and watched as the snow fell past the window. Alex came in a short time later and saw him looking out at the falling snow and began to inquire about how his weekend had gone.
"So, how did your weekend go?" Alex asked taking a seat in one of the recliners.
"Couldn't have went any better." He replied taking a seat on the couch.
"What all did you have planned to surprise her with?" Alex inquired curiously.
"It started out just dinner and a movie, but then it grew into a bubble bath, going dancing and playing games all evening." He replied with a grin.
"Who won the games?" Alex asked curiously.
"She won the first one, and we both lost the on the last one." He replied, thinking back to the fun that they'd had that weekend.
Kim had stretched out on her bunk and pulled out her cell phone and dialed her mother's number. Keira had been crying for several minutes because of the pain from teething and Kim's mother was working on getting her settled down when she heard the phone begin to ring.
"Joey can you get the phone for me?" she called, getting one of the teething rings from the fridge.
He ran for the phone and quickly answered finding his mom on the other end.
"Hey sweetie how are you?" she asked, hearing Keira crying in the background.
"Pretty good." He replied, watching his grandmother trying to calm his sister down.
"How's Keira doing?" Kim asked.
"She's still really irritable. We've been trying to give her a bottle but she won't cooperate and is drooling a lot and rubbing at her ears whenever we lay her down." Joey replied; "What's going on with her? She hasn't done anything like this before."
"She's teething and everything you just described to me are the classic textbook symptoms of it. Normally the first tooth is always the worst and later on it shouldn't be as bad." Kim replied.
"So this is normal?" Joey asked.
"Yep, its all normal for a teething baby." She said in response as Bobby came up; "Lemme talk to your grandmother for a bit sweetheart."
Joey passed the phone to his grandmother and sat down on the couch and took over what she'd been doing with Keira, holding the cold teething ring while she began to bite down on it, the coldness soothing her sore mouth.
"How's everything going?" Kim asked her mother.
"Other than trying to make Keira as comfortable as we can where she's teething, not much else has happened." She replied, watching Joey to make sure everything was ok.
"Joey was describing what all she was doing and everything he said was the classic textbook symptoms for teething. Have the teething rings we brought over helped any?" Kim asked.
"Joey's giving her one now and it's starting to calm her down." Her mother replied.
"Good. I'll see you all when our shift is up." Kim said.
"Ok. You two be careful and I'll see you tonight when you get off." Her mother replied before hanging up the phone.
As Kim put her cell phone up, Bobby sat down beside her on the bunk and asked, "How's she doing?"
"Being the typical teething baby." Kim replied, realizing he was in for an interesting evening tonight.
"And what does a typical teething baby do?" he asked.
"Be really irritable, won't eat, drools a lot and rubs at the ears. Eventually they start biting to try and relieve some of the pain. She hasn't gotten to the biting part yet though." She said in response.
"It looks like you and I are in for one heck of an evening then." He replied.
"Oh of course we are. Chances are we may not be getting a whole lot of sleep either." Kim said in response.
That evening when the shift was over, they changed out of their uniforms after having finished inventory and got ready to leave. Alex and Jimmy were heading out of the station when they came down from changing, and they each grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge before leaving the station. When they got outside the car was covered with snow so Bobby began the process of cleaning off the windshield and back window of the Explorer while Kim started the engine and got the heat going. The roads were snow covered and just to be on the safe side they took their time heading to her mothers to pick up the kids. They didn't know if there was a layer of ice beneath the snow or not and didn't want to find out the hard way by driving too fast. They pulled up in front of her mothers home around 11:40 and headed towards the front door. They could hear Keira crying as they approached the door and Kim noticed a worried look cross Bobby's face as Joey opened the door and let them in.
Joey gave his mother and Bobby a hug and asked quietly," How much longer is this going to last?", referring to Keira being in the teething stage.
"It's going to be a while sweetheart," Kim replied, following the source of the crying, stopping in the bathroom to wash her hands.
As she entered the room her mother was in she asked, "How's she doing?"
"She just woke up again crying. We managed to get her to take a some of a bottle but until the inflammation settles down she's probably going to be a finicky eater for a while." Her mother replied as Kim picked her up.
She quietly began to talk to her trying to get her to settle down as she gently rubbed her crying daughter's gums with the pads of her fingers. Bobby was talking to Joey in the living room when they heard the crying start to die down and eventually stop several minutes later. After she'd settled down she headed out to where Bobby and Joey were and said, "We'd better head out while I've got her calmed down. Since we're probably going to be up most of the night with her crying, do you want to stay the night here Joey?"
"Would you mind?" Joey asked softly.
"It's ok. As long as your grandmother doesn't mind that is." Kim replied, glancing up at her mother.
"It's fine if he stays till she settles down a bit." Her mother said in response.
"You behave for your grandmother and we'll see you tomorrow afternoon when we drop her off before work." Kim said as Bobby grabbed the diaper bag.
Kim zipped up Keira's jacket and put a blanket over her before they headed outside to keep the cold chill off her till they got to the car. While Kim fastened her into the car seat, Bobby started the engine and got the heat going to warm up the inside of the Explorer while he cleared the windshield and back window of snow. They managed to make it home before she began to cry again. Kim went and got one of the cold teething rings from the fridge and sat down on the couch with her and let her chew on it. Bobby went in for a quick shower and Kim thought through the plan that would hopefully get them through the night. When he came out he watched Keira while she went in and took a quick shower as well. After she'd finished she came back out and said, "I think I've got a plan to get us through tonight."
"What have you come up with?" he asked, looking down at Keira still chewing the teething ring like there was no tomorrow.
"I'll try and see if I can get her to eat a bit more before she goes to bed and if she starts to fuss we can use a little of the ora-jel on her and get a little bit of sleep. Then alternate who gets up with her through out the night so we can get as much sleep as we can since we both have to work." She suggested.
"Sounds good to me," He replied, noticing it looked like Keira was about ready to start crying again.
Kim went and got the second teething ring from the fridge and handed it to him to give to her and took the first one and rinsed it off and put it in the fridge to get cold once more. She decided to try nursing Keira to see if she'd cooperate better than trying to give her a bottle since she was being finicky earlier. When Joey went through this it helped so she figured she try it with her as well and see if it worked for her as well. They'd been bottle feeding her after the cyanide incident because they didn't know if it could be passed through milk so they decided to wait a bit just to be on the safe side. She'd try giving her a bottle first though to see if she'd take it but if she wouldn't, then would try to nurse her. She warmed a bottle up for her and went back into the living room and took a seat on the couch next to Bobby. He took the bottle and tried to see if he could get her to take it but each time she turned her head away and wouldn't cooperate.
He sighed and put the bottle on the coffee table and said, "She's got to eat something. From the way your mom talked they didn't have much luck with this either."
"Let me see what I can do." Kim replied, hoping Keira cooperated with her.
Bobby passed Keira over to her and figured she was going to try to see if she could get her to nurse. He hoped it worked because there was no way they could force her to take a bottle if she didn't want to. He got up and went to put the bottle in the fridge since they hadn't used any of it. Much to his relief came back out and saw that Keira had cooperated and was nursing.
"There's one obstacle out of the way," he said with a sigh, sitting back down on the couch.
"Yep, I'm just relieved she cooperated. I was worried she wouldn't and then we'd be in a bit of a crisis." Kim replied, leaning back against the couch.
"You got that right." Bobby said back to her.
After she'd finished nursing, they put some of the baby ora-jel on her gums since she'd started to fuss again. Once it had taken effect she quickly fell asleep after having just eaten and they put her down for the night, wondering how long she'd sleep. They put the second teething ring in the fridge since it would be a while hopefully till she needed it again.
"How long do you think she'll sleep?" Bobby asked as they left the nursery.
"It's hard to say. It depends on how long the gel lasts." She replied, noticing it was after 1 in the morning.
"We'd better get to bed and get some sleep before we start rotating who gets up with her." He suggested; "By the way which of us is taking the first shift with her?"
"I'll take the first one." She replied, curling up in bed and burrowing into the covers.
They got about 4 hours of sleep before Keira began to cry again. Kim got up and got one of the teething rings and headed into the nursery and picked her up. She gently rocked her while she chewed on the cold teething ring. She hoped to avoid using the ora-jel too much because you're only supposed to use it four times a day, and they would probably need it later on. So she decided to go with the teething ring, ice and finger massage trick, hoping it would get her back to sleep. She talked quietly to her while she gnawed on the teething ring. Once the coldness had worn off, Keira had started to fuss and Kim started to gently massage her gums with her fingers. After about an hour and a half Keira finally fell asleep again and she gently placed her back in the crib and went back to bed. Three hours later it was Bobby's turn to get up. He must have been sound asleep because he didn't move for a bit. Kim began to wake him up since it was his turn to get up with her.
"Bobby," she said sleepily; "Get up, it's your turn with Keira."
He felt her grab hold of his shoulder and shake till he'd woken up.
"I do believe it's your turn with Keira." She said once more, making sure he got up before going back to sleep.
He mumbled something incoherent as he made his way across the hall to his crying daughter.
"Sssh, está bien a novio. No llore." He said softly as he picked her up out of the crib. {Sssh, it's ok sweetheart. Don't cry.}
He carried her in and got a wash cloth and an ice cube from the freezer and wrapped it up and took it back to the nursery and gently ran it over her gums. When she began to settle down he moved the chair closer to the window and let her look out at the snow that was still falling illuminated by the streetlights from outside.
"¿La nieve no es Keira bonita?" he asked, watching her look around outside at the snow covered ground below and squeal softly. {Isn't the snow pretty Keira?}
When she started fussing again he got another piece of ice and repeated the massage trick till she settled down and fell asleep an hour later. He placed a gentle kiss on her cheek and said softly, "Buenas noches novio. Duerma bien. La mami y el Papá lo verán en la mañana." {Goodnight sweetheart. Sleep well. Mommy and Daddy will see you in the morning.}
Spanish Translations
~~~
Sssh, está bien a novio. No llore.
Sssh, it's ok sweetheart. Don't cry.
~~~
¿La nieve no es Keira bonita?
Isn't the snow pretty Keira?
~~~
Buenas noches novio. Duerma bien. La mami y el Papá lo verán en la mañana.
Goodnight sweetheart. Sleep well. Mommy and Daddy will see you in the morning.