Toothaches and Bossa Nova

Pimento is teething.  And there might be some gassiness in play, as well.  She's wakeful, napping not more than thirty minutes at a stretch during daylight, and outright fighting sleep at bedtime, finally drifting off in our arms, but twisting and flailing when horizontal.  We've dispensed the go-to remedies to combat the teething, wakefulness, and gas.  She's finally sleeping now, snuggled up with big sis in the biggest bed.

And I still can't sleep.
I have a raging toothache that spans the left half of my jaw, and no amount of home remedies or pain meds can dull it long enough for me to relax.  It could be some sort of teething sympathy pains, though the more likely cause is a remaining wisdom tooth shoving its way into a full mouth and leaving the well-established inhabitants little option but to jostle and bump each other out of the way, in slow-motion.  Which frigging hurts like a mother.  It makes me want to curse and kick and grab some pliers for a little G D relief!

It started throbbing earlier this week, so I called and made an appointment with my dentist.  Can I wait 'til next Thursday?  Sure!  It wasn't unbearable at that point.  Now Thursday looks like a distant mirage, my vision blurred by the pain.

When I was struggling to settle Pimento for the night, experimenting with putting her to sleep in a crib (which I was able to do once earlier, and lasted half as long as it took me to accomplish), Daddy had the clear-headed genius to bring me the radio, tuned to some mellow World Music.
As I rocked and soothed, the tunes went from flutes and guitars to blues and finally, my go-to good mood music, Bossa Nova.  A familiar melody.  All the tension of a restless baby, combined with a wrenched shoulder (oh, didn't I mention that?) and the throb of toothache, lifted away by chill Brazilian syncopations.

Now, with an anesthetic-soaked cotton ball stuffed in my cheek, I try to focus on that feeling, those oceanic rhythms and mellowness lifting me out of my aching body and onto a higher plane, where I can see the big picture.
Where baby teeth arrive and naps can resume.
Where bedtime doesn't take three hours of constant soothing. (Yes, I'll still miss it when she's all grown up.)
Where Thursday really isn't that far off.

(But it still can't come soon enough.)